Heart Strings
by mushi6618
Summary: Every twenty years disappearances would plague the town of Konoha. Sakura's determined not to fall victim, and tries to become an average girl. Little does she know there's no predicting the actions of a mad man; let alone an immortal puppeteer. *UNDER CONSTRUCTION!
1. I'm your new master

**Heart Strings**

_By: Mushi6618_

_Hello, Mushi again! I'm back with another story. This one's a SASO/SAKU fic so if you don't like don't read, kay! Good god there is just SO much potential for this couple, and I must've read all the stories with this pairing, I only found a handful that truly struck me. Thats sad. So since I'm currently smitten with Sasori of the Akatsuki, I'll write alittle romance story about him. I do not own any of Masashi Kishimoto's characters, if I did the show would be rated R or M as FFN likes to put it. So, please enjoy!_

_Prologue_

_Konohagakure: Sixteenth Year of the Third Hokage _

It was a perfect day in the village of Konoha. A young girl with marigold hair walked past the shops and stores as she had done since the day she started her first year of high school. She had lived on the outskirts of town, quite a distance really, and it did wonders for her body; and within time she had developed into one of the most beautiful girls amongst her peers. Boys fawned over her, girls were jealous of her, and even some of the male teachers tried to accost her. She was a vision, her body was perfect, her hair was perfect, and her face was perfect.

However, with vanity came vain. Although she was perfect, she wasn't. To those who weren't what she considered valuable or worthy of her presence, would receive the harsh and unforgivable acid-ness of her imperfect soul. She was wicked, and not one thought crossed her mind about the dangers she might be in as she walked the familiar road to her home.

This girl wouldn't need to have a name. He would give her one when he was done with her. He seen how her body had changed into something he would adore. He also saw how she had changed going from a rather nice child in to what he would have considered a savage beast. Every day since the start of the young blonde's high school curriculum he had watched her. Followed her for three years, and soon she would be graduating, a newborn plague upon the earth. Her beauty would dissolve in the future years, and her vanity would turn into outright cruelty. He would save her from this, save her beauty.

He didn't do this for just anyone, no, his motto was quality over quantity, and his collection consisted of only the best. Granted beauty wasn't the only things he was after, for instance, those with a high intelligence and exceptional skills. Age and sex didn't matter either, though he would admit for beauty he preferred women. Every now and then he'd have to choose a lucky specimen to throw people off his trail, especially when he found a considerable amount of quality. But he had found all of what he wanted from this town, so with this last beauty he would move on.

She was thinking about her upcoming examines, thinking of a way that is to get out of taking them and still get a great grade. She went over the names of the teachers that were wrapped around her finger. Some she could just seduce others she would have to put out for. Oh, well. It would be worth it in the end; she'd graduate and use her body to make her way through the world. She smirked at the though.

The wind seemed to pick up making her cloths sway, her hair drifted around her face as she peered back at the distant town where she had grown up. For a miniscule second, the thought of the recent disappearances entered her mind. It was after all the talk of the town. There was said to be a curse that, close to every twenty years, people would disappear and never return. So far three women and two men were the count. This all happened within the last year, with the most recent disappearance of a woman named Kamakura Haruno. Well, it sucked to be her, didn't it?

Turning around she started back on her way home, she was halfway there. Deciding to sit and take a small break on one of the old, beat up benches, she opened up the remains of her lunch. As she started to finish off her previous meal she notices her surroundings. It was getting dark, Konoha's forest lurked foreboding behind her, and there were only so many lights that worked along the small road. Finishing she packed her bento box away, and proceeded to start on her way home.

Just as she passed the familiar crossings sign, a man walked out in front of her. Startled, she backed away from him. He was dressed rather ominously, a black cloak that went to the ground and a hood that covered his face. At first, fear grasped her, thinking a ridiculous notion that death stood before her. The man pulled the hood back, and she could see white on his shoulders, he was dressed like a man from Suna.

He was also very handsome. The street light gave her a vision of his maroon locks and pink grey eyes, such an unusual color! He had to be no older than twenty, and that charming smile! She could have died…

"My, my, you're more beautiful up close." His voice was even charming!

"Why, thank you. You know, you're a looker yourself." She put as much of her own sugary charm in to her words. This man, oh this beautiful man, she wanted him.

"Ah, yes. But it isn't me we are discussing."

"Really? Well, if you want to discuss anything with me, you have to seduce it out of me." She batted her eyelashes, pouted her lips, stuck out her hip, and made sure to push out her chest. This worked on every man she ever wanted, even some women.

He smiled at this. Truly this girl had made herself into a whore. But a beautiful whore none the less. He only hoped that throughout her sinful acts she hadn't bruised or damaged her body, which would be a waste.

"My lady, I have no intentions of having intercourse with you. However, my intentions are that I make you more beautiful than you are now." She appeared to be shocked.

"Wha-Excuse me! What makes you think you'd get it that easily! For that you can fuck off!"

Pissed that this ignorant ass of a man would pass up a 'good time' with her and furious with the way he explained his 'intentions' she decided to storm past the 'prick'. However, after only a few steps pass the mysterious man she stopped. She couldn't move!

"I'm sorry miss, you won't be going anywhere." He walked around her and lifted her chin, his other hand at his side.

"Ah, you fear me? Don't be worried my little puppet, I'm going to make you forever beautiful."

"W-Who the hell are you?"

She screamed and tried to trash out at him but her arms seemed to be pinned in place. Suddenly her body move of its own accord, almost as if she was a puppet having its strings pulled. Her arms wrapped around the stranger's body, her eyes stared fearfully into his.

"An artist, a puppeteer, and your new master."

With those words he kissed her, biting her lip and drawing her blood. Within seconds the girl's body became limp, the poison taking effect. Soon she would become part of his collection, once he turned her into his human puppet. A 'living' work of art.

"Now, how about a name for you?" He smiled as he carried the dying girl into the darkened forest, thinking the thoughts of a madman.

_Yeah, it made no since. Thats the point of prologue. Don't worry people I'm just setting the stage. Oh, and did you like Sakura's Mother's name, I thought flower names would run in the family. Well, till the next chapie, see ya!_


	2. It was fear

**Heart Strings**

_By: Mushi6618_

_Yeah, this is the begining. Nothing really drematic's benn happening yet, that might be the second or third chapter. Oh, I own none of Masashi Kishimoto-sama's works. I was thinking of making the next chapter competely in Sasori's POV, so this is Sakura's POV. Yes/No? Well anyway, enjoy!_

_Chapter 1_

_Konohagakure: Sixth Year of the Fifth Hokage _

It was a perfect day in the village of Konoha. A young girl with locks of cherry blossom pink hair sat indoors reading ancient scrolls. She was immersed in the ancient writing; reading, translating, and rewriting old medical formulas and kin diagrams onto new scrolls. It was something she did in her spare time, after all somebody had to. She was sort-of studying, and was preparing herself to be a great revival ninja.

At the beginning of the Third Hokage's rein, nin-jutsu became a forgotten practice. After endless battles and wars with other nation's prier, each nation conceded and no longer trained shinobi. Thus, shinobi that were already high in status or were being trained stopped their ways of life. Since nations no longer needed shinobi people turned to other activities, farming improved and technologies flourished. As such the old ways began to disappeared, and by the time of the Forth Hokage most of all the nations new generations didn't know about the way of the ninja. By the Fifth Hokage the practice an art of nin-jutsu was almost non-existent. But the Fifth wanted to change that and so 'revival' ninjas were emerging.

So then, why was this young girl up to her knees in old scrolls? It wasn't just for studying purposes, or her job. It was fear. But what would there be to fear? That would be a good question, and any person in the village of Konoha could have told you the answer. In the sixteenth year of the Third Hokage a young girl only two years older than Sakura had disappeared on her way home. The only thing they found of her was a school bag and an empty bento box. It's been sixteen years since the last disappearance and only four more years were left till the cures came back. Sakura shivered at the thought of the year that she was born. It was the year that her mother had disappeared.

Her mother, Kamakura Haruno, was beautiful. Her eyes were a bright blue-green color and shined like stained glass, and her hair was the color of peach roses. She had a face that looked like an angel, at least that's what her father told her. Her father was the one she thought she took after. Sakura, like her father, had a rather large forehead and she obtained his mint colored eyes. Her hair was the color of her name, cherry blossoms, and despite what her father said she didn't want to believe she was beautiful.

Part of the reason why Sakura wanted to be a revival ninja was because of her mother. People just didn't disappear. She had done research when she was younger, and found out that out of the five to disappear her mother, the bento box girl named Mibae, and a young man had been considerably beautiful. The other woman was a technical genius and the other man had been a shinobi that keep to his ways and was a legendary fighter. So at the age of eight Sakura Haruno decided to not become beautiful, overly smart, or a powerful fighter.

The only problem with her logic was the fact that she was becoming all three. Her father worked for the Hokage in the old library, so he would bring home old scrolls and books to translate, in doing so he had taught his daughter this knowledge and passed down his job to her. Being brought up in such a way left her little time with other children, so for the first years of her life Sakura's skin wasn't damaged and was the color of porcelain. With the death of her father at the age of nine, Lady Tsunade the Fifth Hokage decide that with Sakura's already vast knowledge of the old medical jutsu and she herself being a revival ninja, to take Sakura on as her own pupil and gave Sakura her father's job. With Lady Tsunade as her teacher Sakura learned how to control chakra, and the deadly techniques of her teacher's super strength. Thus, with the way Sakura's life went she was lightly tanned, with an unusual hair an eye color, could read ancient writing, perform forgotten medical jutsu, and smash half a mountain into rubble without even breaking a sweat. Sakura could only curse her luck.

At the age of thirteen the young kunoichi became reclusive. She wore a faded outfit that, she though, didn't make her stand out. A simple red shirt with a pink skirt that was unzipped in both the front and back, she wore underneath this a pair of black spandex shorts and boots that came up to her knees. As an added touch she wore pink elbow guards and black gloves. All villagers were required to where a headband on their person, so she wore hers on her head to keep most of her hair out of her face. Just as an added precaution she kept a pouch on her thigh which held a small medical kit, and for protection two pairs of shuriken. All of her clothing was either worn out or faded till this day.

Her outfit was considered very plain, and she made sure to dull the look of her pink hair, and always showed herself to be that of any average girl in the town. She had over the years become plain in the eyes of the villagers. People close to her could have seen through her guise or perhaps someone who was paying extra close attention, but she made sure no one really got that close.

Finished for now, Sakura got up and looked out her window. Lady Tsunade expected her at practice early today. Carefully putting the delegate rolls of paper back on the shelves and putting away all her inks and brushes, she put the newly translated scrolls in her bag. With it slung over her shoulders she ran out of the old library determined to get to the practice grounds as fast as possible. As she ran she thought back to the scrolls, they had been lent by their neighboring nation, Suna. Since they were just old kin diagrams, and didn't withhold anything of real value, she was able to start work on them. The current scroll she'd been working on was one about a family of puppeteers. The original scroll was said to date back more than three hundred years. The strangest thing about the scroll was that all but one person on the kin list was dead, all except a man named Akasuna no Sasori. Sasori of the Red Sand. Scorpion of the Red Sand.

'_It really was a beautiful day out._' She thought as Sakura sped up and turned the corner of Ichiraku's ramen stand.

"Ouch!"

"Ugh!"

She had run into someone.

"Ah! Are you alright? Here let me help you up."

Grabbing his hand she pulled the young man up with no effort, and for a moment, she thought he looked shaken; his grey pink eyes were wide.

"Thank you."

Sakura closed her eyes in embarrassment, scratching the back of her head.

"Oh, heh, sorry I guess I didn't see you…"

He was gone.

"Hey? Where?"

"Oi! Sakura-chan! Aren't you late?"

"Wha-Ah! Ha, if I don't hurry I'm gonna be! "

"Heh, you better move it girl!"

"Yeah, thank you Ramen-sama!"

Sakura put it in full gear and sped down the road. Putting chakra in her feet, Sakura began zigzagging people and objects in her quest to reach her teacher on time.

"Heh, that girl is something else."

_Do you like where this story is leading? Sakura practically ran Sasori over! :laughsevilly: Uh, yeah. I hope you enjoyed this first chapter, and look forward to the second, it might be longer. Well, bye!_


	3. Strong, Smart, Beautiful

**Heart Strings**

_By: Mushi6618_

_Moshi! Moshi! Mushi back again with the second chapie. Disclamer: I do not own any of Masashi Kishimoto's characters, there would be too much romance in it if I did. HA! Anyway, I'm going to piss some people off who like sasuke, so warning to sasuke lovers. Its not pretty. This is the second chapter and its only in Sasori's POV. Well, enough of my chatter, enjoy._

_Chapter 2_

_Somewhere Underground: Sixth Year of the Fifth Hokage _

He awoke like any normal human being, got up and went to his bathroom. It was small and for the most part unused; a reminder of a time long since past. He walked past the bloody bath tub and thought to clean it up latter. He made it over to his mirror and looked at the face that stared back at him. It was handsome. Each detail was perfect; red thread hair, flawless skin, charming/devilish smile, and glossy grey-pink eyes. He lowered his eyelids and gave the puppet in the mirror his best smile, it returned the favor.

"Good. Everything seems to be working."

Stepping back he began to undress. He removed his cloak and pants that he wore to 'sleep' and pulled out a full length mirror. It was one of his morning rituals to make sure that he hadn't damaged his body during sleep and to see if everything was moving properly. Once again finding nothing wrong he exited the bathroom. Walking naked over to one of his dressers he picked out one of his traditional Suna outfits. He wanted to laugh; in all the years he'd lived the style hadn't changed at all.

"Some things just never change…"

Dressed he looked over at his desk. It hadn't had a project worked on it in a while. Well, he'd just have to fix that. Walking out of the room he lived and worked in he entered a hall-tunnel. Each intersection gave you a choice, but he knew the ones that wouldn't get you killed. Right, left, straight, left, left, right, straight, right, left. He came out to what was a circle of intersections. There were six including the one he was coming from, each had a symbol above it which only he could figure out. They were spelled in Kanji: water, fire, wind, earth, lightning, and poison. Each name was given for each land and one for his 'home'. Unfortunately, the names didn't match what lands they lead to. The water kanji was lightning, the fire kanji was wind, the earth kanji was poison, the lightning kanji was fire, the wind kanji was earth, and the poison kanji was water.

He had made his rounds early these past years. Normally, he'd still have another village to explore in before he went back. But lately he hadn't been finding anything of a challenge; people were becoming the opposite of what he was looking for. People who had fake-beauty on the outside and either nothing or something worse on the inside. People who were smart only to please this new 'pop' culture generation. People who only fought or watched for entertainment. He found them ugly, unable to compete with his mind, and just plain weak. He went through the tunnel with the kanji for lightning written above it.

Like before he moved through the narrow passage. Not giving any thought to the poison traps, that a wrong turn would provide a slow death, after all he built this maze cavern. He came to another intersection. This time there was only four tunnels, including the one he came from. This time symbols showed where each tunnel lead: Hourglass, Leaf, and Waterfall. However, there was no trick to these. In a moment, he was reminded of the lack of quality in the villages. For that he was disappointed. They weren't training shinobi anymore. In just forty years the entire world was transformed from being proud shinobi nations, to cheap economical super powers who were out to beat each other with technology, vanity, or greed.

He past under the leaf symbol.

It had been sixteen years to the date since he left Konoha, expecting to find more puppets for his collection. Instead out of the other twelve villages he'd been too it seemed that the leaf village would be harboring their 'curse' early this year. Granted while he was able to find the so-called diamonds in the ruff, he was beginning to feel like he was mining the world dry. What was worse was that these people only needed to explore, and find out about their talents. He scoffed at himself. Who would want to do that with game shows, super models, and pop stars running around? The idiots.

Suddenly a dart flew past his nose. He blinked and realized that he'd been so lost in thought that he had accidently went down a wrong corridor. Making a face, he made his way out, and ended up having to step over a rotting corpse. It was a good thing he missed the damn thing when he first walked past it. He must have died from the poison gas or tripped one of the darts. The body had several cuts, and was further decaying from the poisonous fog eating away at what was left of the boy's body. It was lying up against a wall, black hair filled with the ooze of its flesh, the boy's white shirt and blue pants stained with the sours of him. The smell would have been horrifying. In another two months even the bones and clothes would dissolve, and nothing but a stain would remind the walls that this intruder had entered this maze.

"Well, I guess that's what you get for being curious, however, _congratulations_ on making it thus far. What a shame, you probably would have made an excellent puppet."

The poison that lined the walls, and which filled the air and traps were all his own concoctions. The corpse was fresh, maybe two weeks old by the looks of its decay. He was excited. That meant that something was happening. Maybe shinobi were starting to reappear? That boy had to have been either extremely skilled or incredibly lucky to make it that far into his domain. His thoughts raced. Come to think of it he had fought a young man from Suna just two days before. Granted he wasn't an extraordinary shinobi but there was some talent, but he had brushed the boy off because he was using hand-me-down weapons. He wouldn't permit someone into his collection for plagiarism. The worst thing was that this boy used his old weapons, they were ancient and had almost broken on contact, but the kid showed promise with the way he controlled his chakra strings. He left the kid off the hook, sort of. The boy only had three days to live, tops.

Before he knew it he had walked to his destination. It was another small corridor; however, this one had several intersections. They lead to hidden openings in Konoha. None of them were marked, and of course some lead to poisonous traps. He figured he had walked, from his 'home' to this point, almost fifty to sixty miles in just under three hours. He didn't even break a sweat. Taking a tunnel he knew would lead him up into the center of town; he thought of what he would do throughout the day.

Sixteen years would do a lot to a town. He was pleased to see that nothing much had seriously changed the village. There were more houses, and power lines, plus there were two new faces on the Hokage Mountain. But all together nothing much seemed to change. Several people past him, people all in new and different styles of clothing. For a moment he wanted to be in Suna, where only the sand and personalities changed. The only thing he recognized was the trademark leaf headband that was worn by everyone in the village. Pulling out his, he tied it on to his arm, hidden from view by the tree he'd just come out of. The one thing he liked about his outfit was that without the white sash over his shoulders, it could easily be an ordinary cloak. With his hood hiding his hair, he stepped out and blended into the crowd.

His eyes scanned the mob of people. From the young to the old, Konoha was beginning to disappoint him as well. He had searched most of the village, even went to spy on the Fifth Hokage, who he thought was overly busty. From what he had heard she was a skilled medical ninja, related to the First Hokage, and was trained by the Third. But she seemed to only be mildly skilled; after all she was brought up in a world where shinobi no longer existed. But he was glad to see that the shinobi ways were starting to come back.

"A ninja _revival_? Hmm."

Smart, beautiful, and from the fear she received, probably powerful. If only she wasn't important. He would leave this woman alone; she might just succeed with her plans. That would be good for him. After all, he was tired of not fighting anything worthy. He had started back towards the center of town, passing the local hospital.

"Can you believe it, Ino-chan? They said he was brought here all the way from _Suna_, and in such a condition!"

"I know Ten-Ten-chan. Ugh; I heard he was stabbed in the stomach with something _poisonous_. Did you see him when he went in? Kami-sama, he looked like he was _dead_!"

"Yeah. I hope he doesn't die. Temari-san would be devastated!"

"What do you think Gaara-sama - I mean the Fourth Kazakage will do? Isn't Kankuro-san his brother?"

"I think so. This is just so terrible."

"I know! I hope they find the **BASTARD** who did this and kick his _ASS_!"

"_INO-CHAN_! Watch your language, were in front of a _hospital_!"

"Oh, heh. Sorry, Ten-Ten-chan. I'm just upset about this."

Neither of the girls seemed worthy of his attention but he couldn't help but listen to their conversation. So the boy, Kankuro, was still alive. Didn't they know that the more you move the body, the more the poison would spread? He smiled to himself. The kid would be dead before the night was out. Peering over at a clock, he noticed it was almost two in the afternoon. Getting further into town he noticed a small ramen shop just ahead.

"Ichiraku's Ramen?"

The thought of lunch penetrated his mind but was quickly dismissed. Even after all the years he'd lived, he still wanted to enjoy normal human comforts. _Maybe some things never really did change_. Speeding up to walk past the familiar scents of food, he took the corner rather fast, not watching where he was going.

"Ouch!"

"Ugh!"

He had run into someone, his hood had come off, and he sat with one hand supporting him sprawled on the dirty street. _Great_…

"Ah! Are you alright? Here let me help you up."

All of a sudden he felt a tug on his other hand as the person grabbed him and practically hauled him up off the ground. What kind of man was he dealing with? He felt his eyes bulge as he realized just _what_ picked him up off his rear.

"Thank you."

"Oh, heh, sorry I guess I didn't see you…"

He was already around the block by the time she had opened _her_ eyes._ Her_. A _GIRL_. A _girl_ just picked his ass up like he was nothing but a basket of feathers! _Her face_, KAMI-SAMA! Her face was _beautiful_! He only wished she didn't close her eyes, he would have loved to have seen what color they were!

"Hey? Where?"

"Oi! Sakura-chan! Aren't you late?"

_Sakura_. So that was this girl's name, he had to find out more about her. He slowly began to peek around the counter of the stand.

"Wha-Ah! Ha, if I don't hurry I'm gonna be! "

"Heh, you better move it girl!"

He had to catch just one more glimpse of her. Hidden behind the ramen stall his eyes widened. She had turned around. Her short hair gaining color in the sun, turning a brighter pink and swaying with her movements so that it framed her face. Her body twisted, showing off her curvy form and giving him a slight erotic pose, as she got ready to speed away with her hand raised to wave good bye. _Her eyes_. They were beautiful. A light mint green that sparkled with intelligence, pride, fury, and kindness. Two beautiful orbs that shown her soul and made her entire being. _Strong. Smart. Beautiful._

"Yeah, thank you Ramen-sama!"

He watched her run and pick up speed as he came out from his hiding place. It didn't go unnoticed that she had used chakra to enhance her speed and control. He was impressed.

"Heh, that girl is something else."

"Yes, so it seems. She is _very_ pretty."

"Ha! Ha! Ha! So! You have the _hots_ for Konoha's own blossoming beauty, too? So does my son. Don't tell her I said that, she'll kill me. Heh! Well, listen up, kiddo. That there is Sakura Haruno, the pride of our own Fifth Hokage. So if that girl don't outwit ya or beat the _crap_ outta ya, Lady Tsunade will! Ha! Ha! Ha! But by all means good luck!"

"_Hehhh_…thank you for the advice…"

His eye was still twitching from the kiddo comment, if only he could kill that man. But as a reward for the information he got, he'd let the Ramen seller live. Looking down he spotted something odd, a scroll. Picking it up, he slipped it in his cloak not giving it any thought. He walked away from the small ramen stand, heading towards one of his passage ways. Thinking of the day he had just went through. It wasn't even time for him to go back but his feet seemed to move on their own. He needed time to think. To _plan_.

Coming up to the small statue of the second Hokage he went behind it, triggered the seal, and slipped through the small hole that appeared. The hole automatically closed when he was through. Walking back to his 'home' all sorts of plans, thoughts, and ideas ran through his head. Remembering the scroll and tired of it bumping into his arm, he pulled it out and began to read. A dark but charming smile appeared on his young face as he maneuvered the dark corridors of his deathly labyrinth. He didn't know how, but this girl had found his families kin records. Freshly translated to it seemed.

"_Sakura Haruno_. Hm. I wonder what you'll do when you meet me."

He smiled down at the only unmarked picture, which was obviously not done by the translator, that didn't have an X through it. A young boy, with his features stared back at him.

"What will you do, when you meet _Akasuna No Sasori_?

Sasori laugh evilly as he walked the rest of the corridor to his home. His echo carrying throughout the cavern and his thoughts on a pink haired kunoichi…

_Well, yeah. I killed Sasuke. But I had to Ok! For the Story! Right? Oh, well...anyway If the next installment isn't in by, say, two weeks from now, blame my boyfriend. I hope you like this installment, and see its longer and hope it stays that way! Well, bye for now!_


	4. If it wasn't just a story

**Heart Strings**

_By: Mushi6618_

_Wow, I'm updating soon with this story, thats twice I've done this. How...odd of me. Anyway, I just like to tell you that I don't own Naruto or any of the other characters, Masashi Kishimoto does. Well, this is in Sakura's POV, I'll try to alternate it. I think this is a important point in the story, from here all the pieces of the puppet come together. Enjoy._

_Chapter 3_

_Konoha Hospital: Sixth Year of the Fifth Hokage _

She hadn't had the time to stop at the hospital, but seeing the worried faces of Ino and Ten-Ten had got her attention. Skidding to a stop and churning the dust in the process, she ran pass them with a slight nod and made her way in. It hurt her to see them; they hadn't been friends since her father died.

"Quick call Lady Tsunade!"

"What's his status?"

"A puncture wound to his chest. He's been convulsing, it seems that whatever stabbed him was poisoned."

"Thank you Temari-san, this information will really help."

"Yes, my brother will be guarding his room so be careful, and please do all you can to save Kankuro."

"Of course, Konoha has two of the best medically trained ninja in all of the villages – Oh! Speak of the devil!"

"Temari-chan, what are you doing here? Aren't you supposed to be in Suna by now?"

"Sakura! Oh, thank Kami-sama! Quick, its Kankuro, he's been in some sort of a fight."

"What? Kankuro? Ok, take me to his room and on the way explain to me what happened."

"As you know, we left three days ago, and about two days ago we stopped to rest, Kankuro went to get something – wood I think – but then he didn't come back for a while. I and Gaara went to look for him and when we found him, he had this small wound in his chest, and was unconscious. Since we were half way to either village, we decided to return here. We knew Hokage-sama and you, Sakura-chan would be here. There's no one else me or Gaara would trust with our brother."

"Thank you, Temari-chan. Now why would you have reason to believe Kankuro got into a fight?"

"Because his puppets Karasu, Kuroari, and Sanshōuo were destroyed. Granted they were almost three centuries old, Kankuro keep them in good condition. Plus, he would only use them if he were in a desperate situation, since those puppets were antiques."

"I see. I forgot that Kankuro's mother was a descendent of the Akasuna clan."

"How – how did you know that?"

"Oh, um, remember those scrolls I asked about, well, a couple kin scrolls were tossed in with the medical ones."

"Really? Heh, I guess I did just grab a few. I really wasn't paying attention to what I was doing. I mean, I couldn't read what they said. So…"

"It's alright, maybe Kankuro would like to see it when he gets better."

"Sakura-chan, I – Thank you."

The girls made their way to Kankuro's room, the sign above the door said critical unit. There in front of the entrance stood Gaara, Suna's very own Kazekage, his eyes shadowed and giving off a warning aura. He had won the title by fighting his own corrupt father, and even though he wasn't very strong, had succeeded and turned things around for Suna. He did this all at such a young age. Sakura thought it was too young, and though he was a good leader and loved his village just as much as what was left of his family, and he was willing to die for both.

"Kazekage-sama." Both ladies said and bowed in unison.

"Gaara-kun this is Sakura-chan, remember? She's here to help Kankuro."

He stared up at them; eyes filled with worry, the tattoo with the kanji for love above his left eye seemed to burn on his skin. Suddenly, Sakura felt a surge of energy to help; feeling her medical training being called forth. For some reason in that moment she remembered something her father had told her. "Your mother would do anything to help people in trouble, or to protect the people that she loved. She always kept a promise, no matter what. I remember that night, you were born just a week earlier, and your mother had gotten a house call. She put on her medical uniform, I tried to stop her, and it was so late at night. She had told me that it was her duty as a medical officer, and that she had to keep her promise to be there. She made it to Mrs. Uchiha's house just in time to assist in the birth of their son, Sasuke. But she never returned home. I should have made her to promise to come home, and then maybe she might have." After that night everything changed for Sakura. She was going to help people, heal people, and make sure nothing like that happened in Konoha again. She was going to be an ordinary medical officer, like her mother and give meaning to the circle symbol on her back that meant life.

"Gaara-sama I would like to help Kankuro-san. I promise that he won't die."

He looked shocked, and she thought that it was twice that day she seemed to get a wide eyed look. She saw the corner of his mouth lift into a small smile.

"Yes, thank you Sakura-san. I'm sure he won't."

He moved, allowing the girls entrance into the room, then returning to his position guarding the door. Inside she saw Kankuro lying on the small white cot in the middle of the room. He was lying on his back sweating, convulsing, and generally showing signs that he was in a terrible pain. The poison had been working its way through his body, eating away at his insides.

She had to act fast.

Soon Sakura was shooting orders to nurses and Temari; they were running errands left and right. Some keep Kankuro stable; while others were to find ingredients for the antidote she had to make. Using a forgotten jutsu, Sakura contained what poison that was in the boy's system, pulling it out. From that she could make an antidote. After analyzing the continents of the poison she quickly ordered another search for more ingredients. As she began to work, her mind returned back to the information on the freshly translated medical scrolls that she had received from Suna; and which were oddly enough on poisons and antidotes. Finishing, she quickly poured the continence into a small cup and proceeded to pour the bitter liquid into Kankuro's mouth. He barely choked it down but it was enough to get him out of danger's way. She heard the door open then, and in walked her sensei, master, and adopted mother: Lady Tsunade.

"Sakura –"

"I - I'm sorry I didn't make it to practice, Lady Tsunade."

"Yes, of course. I'm glad you skipped, this is much more important. However, I would like to have been informed instead of waiting at our training ground _for three hours._"

"Heh, well I must have forgotten to send someone to tell you."

"It's ok Sakura; after all you needed to concentrate. I heard what had happened from Temari-san and Gaara-sama outside. Just how bad was Kankuro-san?"

"It was serious. He had a small puncture wound in his abdomen which was laced with a highly complex poison. Whatever attacked him was _deadly_ and meant to kill him slowly."

"Apparently so. What about his condition now?"

"Stable, but he's going to be in a lot of pain. The poison has been in his system for more than two days. I just gave him the antidote that I created from the original poison. I made up two extra shots just in case something should arise in his condition. He'll need to rest for the next three days and maybe more. But the good news is - Kankuro-san should be fine."

"Excellent, good job Sakura-chan. Now I want you to make up more of this antidote, so we have it if other patients appear. Oh, and I want you to carry at least two shots on your person at all times."

"Yes, ma'am."

"Now, let's go tell Temari-san and Kazekage-sama the good news!"

It was crazy after that. Both siblings rushed in to be at their brother's side after they heard the news. Temari was cry profusely and she even seen Gaara shed a few tears. Family, she thought, and it pained her to watch the siblings. She loved Lady Tsunade and she was sure that her 'mother' felt the same, but sometimes she felt that the whole adoption thing was just papers and signatures. She had never shared such closeness with Lady Tsunade as she looked at the three in the hospital room, and for once in her life she truly felt lonely.

Latter after all the questions, answers, and dead end theories, did Sakura find a minute to herself. She ended up spending the night sleeping in a cot next to Kankuro, as a precaution. Temari slept peacefully outside the door on one of the benches, and Gaara sat outside the door and she was sure he had fallen into a light sleep as well. Those two must have been exhausted.

She wasn't tried though. She felt restless, which meant something was on her mind. What was bugging her? Deciding that if she couldn't fall sleep, she could at least do something productive. Sitting up and grabbing her bag off the floor, she began to pull out the scrolls she had been translating just the day before. Laying them down in order in front of her, she looked at her work. Something was wrong, she was missing one. Worried she scanned the names on the scrolls: Poison Mixtures and History, Puppet Maintenance Care, Antidote Mixtures and History, Akasuna Family Histories II, and Sand and Wind Burn Care.

Where was Akasuna Family Histories I? Granted it wasn't finished, but the thought of losing something that she had spent a lot of time working on, grated on her nerves. Plus, she thought sheepishly, she had asked Sai-san to copy all of those pictures that were from the original. He'd kill her if she asked him to do that again! Where could she have lost it? She thought back on her day. She had got up, showered, and made her way to work at six. She'd just finished the scroll on Puppet Maintenance Care at eight, when Sai brought over the finished Akasuna Family Histories I. It had taken him longer to finish that one because he'd accidentally put a cross through the last family member when he wasn't supposed to, so she made him redo the whole thing. She got started on it right away, and was almost finished with it by noon. She remembered packing it in her bag, then rushing off to meet up with Lady Tsunade. She then bumped into someone on her way, latter ended up at the hospital, and was now analyzing how she had lost one of her scrolls. It had to have been when she either bumped into that guy or when she was rushing around in the hospital. But when she was in the hospital she had made sure to put her bag in her locker, where nothing could be disturbed. So that meant she had lost the scroll when she almost ran that poor guy over. A rather large sweat drop appeared on her, at the memory. At the speed she was going she probably could've killed him.

She tried to remember all that had happened. He was hot. Her face turned a bright red at the thought of the young man. How had she forgotten him? Sakura remembered him grimacing on the ground, and being not to happy sitting in the dirt. His hair was reddish maroon, which complemented his fair skin, and fell softly around his face. His eyes. There was something about his eyes. But she hadn't gotten a real good look at them, because she stupidly or rather sheepishly at the time, closed her eyes in embarrassment. A force of habit. He was wearing a cloak, which was odd, because it was summer. She remembered his startled face as she used just a little too much strength in pulling him up, which she thought was funny.

Coming to the conclusion that she had dropped the scroll when she fell, and cursing her luck, she was drawn to the fact that either Ramen-sama or that pretty young man had picked it up. The first of the two would be easy, but finding the young guy was going to be hard. Sakura cursed her luck again. Something like this always happened to her. Her mother, her father, her job, and what was next? Her life? She picked up a scroll - Puppet Maintenance Care.

"Best not to think like that."

"T-think like wha-what?"

He was up. He shouldn't have been up so soon. She dropped the scroll next to the others. He must be in terrible pain being conscious.

"Kankuro! What- you're awake! You should be sleeping! I should go an-"

"_No_! Um, n-no, please wait d-don't get them."

"But Kankuro, your brother, your sister their-"

"L-listen, I need to t-tell someone, but not t-them, not _yet_."

"Ok, what is it, and be slow you've been through a lot."

"It's about w-what happened. Ugh. I have to tell…"

"Of course but maybe when you're felling a bit better."

"…to tell. He s-stabbed me. Challenged me and I…I accepted…lost."

"Oh, my go-"

"My p-puppets. They were…his…destroyed. He should be dead. But he was…alive."

"Kankuro – what, who?"

"My…him…ancestor…Sasori. Akasuna no Sasori."

He fell back unconscious. This news disturbed Sakura, and it would even more when latter she would find out from his siblings that them nor Kankuro would know anything about such an ancestor without reading the Akasuna scrolls. Those scrolls only Sakura could read, and they couldn't have read the translated ones; she'd lost the one with Akasuna no Sasori in it. The man without a cross over his picture. The man who wasn't dead in Akasuna's history. The man who appeared to still be alive. But that was all just crazy patient talk. Wasn't it? Kankuro was sick and heavily drugged. Right? Plus, there was a little symbol of a red scorpion on each of his puppets, which she had a chance to examine.

It was all just a fabricated story of a delirious poisoned patient. Wasn't it?

If it wasn't. He'd be three hundred years old in another six months. He'd somehow be immortal or something else all together. He'd have the knowledge and experience of his time and the present. He'd be able to battle, and from the wounds inflicted to Kankuro, able to kill someone with both regular and biological weapons. He was a puppeteer, and if he still was, be able to infiltrate the village easily. From what she had read he was brought up to use his skills in war, and he was a genius in an off the battle field. Worst of all, Sasori would be a full-fledged shinobi in a world where the art of the ninja was forgotten. The damage he could do would be immense. Sasori. A walking terror. A poisonous plague.

That was, if it wasn't just a story.

_Yes and another chapter done. Next will be in Sasori's POV. Oh, blame Sasuke for getting Sakura's mom killed. In case you haven't noticed I don't like Sasuke, or Deidara either for that matter. Hate me if you must. Next story should be up soon. So till then._


	5. Never good at waiting

**Heart Strings**

_By: Mushi6618_

_You have know IDEA how much effort, and web info i had to dig up for this chapter. Thank you Wikapedia, and Japanese to English on line dictionary, I own niether. This chapter is **GROSS** so be **WARNED**. I don't want to hear you threw up and are blaming me for it. I don't own naruto Masashi Kishimoto does, damn him. Oh, P. S. I was running on no sleep for about two days when I wrote this, so sorry if it don't make sense or you don't get the images I'm trying to show you through words...Anyway, Enjoy!_

_Chapter 4_

_Sakura's House: Sixth Year of the Fifth Hokage _

It was just past ten. He could tell because she was asleep. He found that it was her only routine, go to bed at ten and wake up a five. Sasori could tell because the miniature mannequin of Sakura was asleep in the miniature scale model of her room. A week earlier he'd went to town posing as a young artist using Oroka, one of his heartless dolls. Sasori had set it up so that his human puppet, which was no older than his prey, posed as an art student and would accidentally bump into her. Sakura would help the poor girl up and as a gift for such a wonderful act – why be rewarded with one of the art students mannequins of course! It worked perfectly. What looked like an ordinary wooden doll was actually one of his tiny puppets, which he could spy with using the hidden glass eye in its chest. Sasori placed the tiny identical art doll where Sakura had set hers. The small room was set up beside him in his bathroom for the moment where he could keep his glass eye on it.

So he sat working on his current project in the safety of his 'home' while watching the small puppets act out what was happening in the miniature room. Sakura had placed the doll on her desk, giving him a perfect view of what she did. When the girl was in view of the tiny puppet, the miniature mannequins would respond in the miniature room. It was better than sitting in her room himself for times when all he would do is watch her sleep. That would be boring, and he liked to make the most of his time. Sasori didn't like waiting for people to wake up. It didn't help that he need not sleep either.

Instead, he found himself working on his next puppet. It had been three weeks since his first encounter with the kunoichi and the rotting boy. Regretting not taking the boy from his previous fight, he decided to honor the degrading corpse that was stinking up his hall ways. After all he needed something to occupy the nights. The puppet man looked over at the miniature girl; it appeared that she had rolled over in her bed.

Sasori had found out a lot about her. Sakura Haruno, age 16, the child of Kamakura Kusabana and Honsho Haruno - who were both deceased. She was currently living under the guidance of the Fifth Hokage and worked just below her apartment as a script translator. He'd also found out she was medical officer of the Konoha Circle of Life hospital, which explained the circle symbol on the back of her clothing she always wore. Shadowing her movements lead him to become accustomed to her routines, habits, rituals, and personality-ies.

Sasori had heard, while he was spying on her, about what happened to his long distant relive. Kankuro, the product or spawn from his uncle's side. He'd leave the brat alone, what possible information they could get from him would be determined as rubbish. However, the boy living wasn't what disturbed or rather intrigued him. Sasori was skeptical at first, but he knew it was the truth. No one, not even the very person who had shown him how to make poison could create an antidote for it. Even he himself needed a detailed list of the original ingredients to make a proper antidote; otherwise you'd further kill the patient. Sakura had made up and antidote to one of his most deadly poisons. The thought of it made him…

_SNAAAAP_!!

He was so excited he forgot to considerate on what he was doing. Sasori had accidentally pulled out the boy's spinal cord to fast, and as a result, it broke. He had even crushed the bone he's been holding.

"_Kuso_…I could have used that as part of a weapon. Oh well, you don't need it anyway."

Sakura didn't seem to have very many friends, and wasn't very close to the people around her. For the first seven days he had watched her every movement, shadowing her with various puppets. He'd seen her practice with her so-called mother, witnessing her strength and tactical skill as a young boy looking through the fence. He'd seen her expertise as a medical officer when he accidentally made a chief slip and cut their hand off pretending to be a customer at a sushi restaurant. He'd seen her intelligence when he walked into the library she worked at, dressed as an old monk, and asked to have some of his scrolls translated. Sasori knew she was polite and kind. Twice, not only as himself but as a clumsy art student, she had helped him up. Not many people in this day and age would. He remembered her mint eyes…

_CRAAAKKK_!!

"Ugh, not _again_."

He'd grabbed a rib, and didn't remove it properly. Sasori seriously needed to start paying attention to what he was doing. The art of hitokugutsu wasn't easy. To make one you needed time, skill, and patience. Time and patience, he was lacking as he thought back on the process, cursing his one pet peeve. His mind drifted into the making of a human puppet.

It's been two weeks that he was working on the boy, who he found out was named Sasuke, and whose skin was a mess. Nasty, really. Treating of the skin was just like any other tanning or embalming process, with the exception of a few extra steps for his type of art. Sasori worked in an out of his bathroom; using the tub for when he'd be making a mess, and his desk for the more detailed work. After stripping the body of the soiled clothing, he washed the body down, being careful not to damage it further. He plugged the tub and put a grated table upon it. There would be a lot of blood. He would start his work there.

The first thing he did was to remove the brains via the boy's nose, which he did carefully as not to damage the face. The tool he used was long and thin with a tiny hook on the end, and was also used to poke the eyes and punch through the ear drums. Using a small needle syringe he stuck it into the rotting flesh three inches below the boy's belly button. He could have used a catheter but he didn't feel like obtaining the boy's urine by touching the kid's –_ thing_. He put the brains and urine he collected in two small containers and took them to the kitchen. There was a huge pot of water boiling. He looked around his shelving spotting the ingredients he'd need. Setting everything on his desk, which was conveniently located next to his small stove, he began measuring out the formula.

Sasori took into account the boy's body mass and the amount of chemical fluid he'd need. He poured the young man's brain's into the boiling water, followed by the urine, ground Sumac bark, formaldehyde, ground chestnut bark, sand salt, methanol, ground oak bark, glutaraldehyde, ethanol, a pinch of lime, and other chemicals that would harden and preserve the skin. He would spray the body once a day for two weeks with this concoction and add a pressure jutsu to make the solution seeped into the skin. Sasori had to make sure not to get any in the boy's hair; it would dissolve, so he had to scalp the boy before he started. When the body dried the boy's skin would be a brownish color - resistant to water, time, and decay. He smiled.

It'd been two weeks, and a week since he'd created the ningyō no ie for his tiny Sakura-kugutsu. Sasori had just begun taking the flesh, bones, and other organs out of the corpse; glancing at the doll house every half an hour. He had to cut the body into sections: decapitating the head four inches below the jaw, cutting a semi circle right below the ribcage dividing the body in two, slicing both arms five inches above the elbow in the humerus and five inches below the elbow in both the radius and ulna, slicing both legs five inches above the patella in the femur and five inches below the patella in both the tibia and fibula, cutting just above the boys pelvic bone separating his vertebra further, cutting at the joints connecting the two femurs and the two humerus. Hard, time consuming work.

Fluids of all kinds left the boy's body, some organs he couldn't recognize because of the poison's effects. The inner flesh had turned a grayish brown because the poison had eaten away at it and started to dissolve the bone. The lungs were a snotty blood covered mess, and the kid's heart was black and spongy. His intestines had holes in them releasing feces which were mixing with the continents of the boy's stomach. It wouldn't have smelled very nice. He was sure that had he still been able to breath, let alone smell, he'd have thrown up or passed out. But he didn't have to worry about that any more; there were some advantages to being a hitokugutsu.

Sasori took the parts that would need more detailed disassembling to his desk, which was large and was almost the width of his room, there was a long shallow sink away from his stove. Plugging the sink like he did his tub, he took the arms and legs that had the hands and feet still attached and placed them in the sink. The living hitokugutsu then took the boy's head; lifting it so the face looked at his, the eyes bloody sockets, and brought out a small metal stake attached to a piece of flat wood. He skewed the head on to it. He had also brought with him the pelvic section leaving the hips and stomach sections with the upper arms and chest in the tub. Sasori had always made his more beautiful dolls to look more human than those of his uglier ones. With the ugly ones he wouldn't bother with the tools that he laid beside the sink. The joints, torso, and pelvic area wouldn't be seen regularly; but the feet, hands, and face would. So he'd devised a way to clean the skin of flesh and bone without making it look like actual puppet's hands, feet and face. Like he had done with himself.

By this point the boy's skin was harder than wood. So the devices he was about to use wouldn't puncture through the skin without forced pressure. There was a device that could be shrunk or enlarged at one end. It was a round thin sheet of steel, which would slice the flesh away from the layer of under skin. He would shrink the blade and slice the flesh around the bone until he reached the boy's wrist. Using a very long set of teasers and a flexible round blade two inches smaller than the whole of Sasuke's wrist, Sasori positioned it at the end of where he would cut.

Using his chakra strings he made the small round blade spin inside the boy's arm, moving it and began cutting through the cartilage, blood vessels, and bone of Sasuke's wrist. Blood was oozing out of the end of the arm as he used the disk like blade to push the loose flesh and bone out leaving the arm hollow up to the hand. This was the tricky part. He looked at where the metacarpus or palm bones ended and picked up what looked like an odd shaped ice cream scooper. He began scooping out the flesh around the four bones, using his teasers again he placed and even smaller circular disk inside the boy's hand. Spinning it he began to cut each bone away from the phalanges or finger bones, being careful not to puncture the skin in between the fingers, and shook out what he'd cut loose. Taking another instrument, a spiked ball which could spin and was attached to a thin rod, he shoved it into the index finger and began to spin the ball with his chakra. Sasori had an assortment of different sized balls and rods that could be switched for the dynamiter of the digits, and a special rod and ball for the thumbs. A small crunching and sputtering sound emitted from the hands finger. It cut all the way up to the tip. Pouring some of the mixture he's used before, he shook the hand and poured out the remains of the boy's inner fingers. When he was done he took the hand and placed it back into the basin he'd carried it out to the table in. He applied the same technique to the other hand, and a similar method with both the feet.

Soon he was left with the face and pelvis area. He made a disgusted face at the boy's genitalia. What man would want the curse that came with that horrid appendage? In his own view, when he took the rotating saw to Sasuke's manhood, he was in fact releasing the boy of his troubles. The wants of the flesh only brought trouble. Depositing the organ in a small jar of embalming fluid, he looked at the square hole that had started to bleed when he ripped out Sasuke's – _thing._It was easy from there on to cut out the flesh, pelvic bones, rotting organs, and the small pieces of vertebra. Sasori would use the skin from the boy's scrotum to patch up the area he'd removed. He placed the pelvic piece with the other four limbs.

The head was the easiest and most difficult. While he could easily remove the flesh and bone from the boy's neck up to the base of his skull, he would have a tricky time with the skull itself. Not to mention the eye sockets, nose cavity, and the inner parts of the ear and mouth. He had to keep the boy's original teeth and jaw. This meant he'd have to cut the rest of the skull into pieces so it could be removed through the neck. While he did this, Sasori had to hold the head of the boy up with chakra strings as he worked. He'd let the scalped hair dry over the period of two weeks on a mold of the boy's head he'd made after the third day of the chemical spray, so he didn't have to worry about that. What he did have to worry about was not damaging the very thin layer of skin he left covering the young man's skull. With gentle flicks of his fingers he maneuvered the small sharp tools around in the boy's head, clearing out the cavity.

When he was done, he set the face down and looked at the expression. The sockets were wide with shock, the mouth a grim line, and the eyebrows were missing because of the chemical spray. What was left was a face frozen in horror, the realization that you were going to die in a poisoned hallway all alone. Never to see your friends. Family. Anyone.

He put the head in the basin with the other body parts, cleaned up the sink, and opened the drain washing away the lifeless blood down the drain with the hose. Picking up the basin he went to go watch his doll in her doll house, and finish his new puppet.

"_Uhh_, I shouldn't space out like that when I'm working."

Coming out of his trance, he looked down at the strewn body parts. He'd done fast work of the body in two days, considering what else he had on his agenda. Completing the upper arms and thighs, Sasori had begun to work on the upper and lower chest, earlier pulling out the remains of the broken spine, shoulder blades, and ribs. It apparently had taken him all night as he looked at the miniature clock in Sakura's miniature room. It was five minutes to five, and the small kugutsu began to move in its small bed placed against the wall. Everything in the room was to scale with what Sakura had in her room, right down to the clothes on her and in her drawers. Sasori had searched her room toughly, mentally blushing several times, when he went through said drawers.

He watched the tiny Sakura- kugutsu rise and stretch as her miniature alarm chimed telling her it was five o'clock on the dot. It was her sixth one in the three weeks since he'd been following her, if she wasn't in a good mood when she woke up she got - violent with her alarm clock. Today she was in a good mood. Normally she would get up, look out the window to see the weather, pick out an outfit from her closet and go into her bath room door where the doll on the table couldn't see her. After fifteen minutes the jutsu would reactivate and the Sakura-puppet would reappear in the miniature room. Dressed, she would gather her things around, strapping a large pouch behind her and leave for the day, which will signal for him to leave to go watch her.

Today was different.

She stood longer at her window; he couldn't tell what her expression was. She walked over to her dresser and took out what, when he looked at it, was an old medical uniform. The Sakura- kugutsu started to shake, signaling that she was crying. She tossed the uniform back in the drawer, slamming it shut and opened another below it. She pulled out her regular outfit and tossed it on the bed. She seemed angry for a moment, then stormed into the bathroom, her mannequin body going limp without the sight of the real one.

He noticed, thirty minutes later, the doll came back into the tiny room. He didn't know what was wrong, but something wasn't right. The spy-kugutsu that Sakura had on her desk showed him everything she did. At that moment it was showing she was wet, because it had a small ball of water over the Sakura-puppet's head. It let it fall, making the cloth stick to its small wooden body.

She had showered with her clothes on? He stopped what he was doing, washing his hands off, and turned to give the little Sakura-kugutsu his full attention. What was she doing?

If Sasori had a pulse in his body, it would have stopped. Had he had blood it would have rushed to his face and, had he not removed his own manhood, _that_ too. His heart pulsed rapidly instead, fake grey-pink eyes widening. He wanted to curse his attention for detail.

She was undressing, slowly. The small mannequin mimicking every action the real puppet made.

He tried to think of the countless woman he'd seen without clothing. Some just as beautiful as this girl, some not, but they had had no effect on him.

She had removed her shirt, throwing the wet mass to the floor, and began to slip off her wet shorts.

It had to be the fact that he thought so high of her; it was the only explanation he could come up with as his heart dug up long lost sensations of his former living body, making his chakra pulse providing the unwanted sensations.

The kugutsu took the tiny bra off, showing the two lumps of wood he'd used for her bosom.

He suddenly had a desire to be in her room.

Her _wet_ panties fell to the floor.

Suddenly, a small trickle of poison, which acted as his 'blood', leaked out of the puppet master's nose.

The small puppet got dressed in the tiny clothing that was on the tiny bed, and left the tiny room; only to become limp being out of the sight of the jutsu. Sasori's eyes were still wide, the poison dripping down off his chin onto his cloak. He felt like breathing heavily, only to remember he couldn't breathe, he had gotten rid of his lungs entirely. His hands clutched the chair he sat in, the effects of his hearts chakra still soaring through him. Sasori hadn't felt pleasure in a long, _long_ time.

He had a project to finish. He should watch her for at least three more months. His mind was thinking too much. His heart was acting to wildly. He felt like he couldn't control his body.

So, why did he want to capture her that moment?

Make her disappear into his world?

He bent his head, his hair shadowing his eyes giving him a dark look as he peered at the small puppet of his prey. He gave the kugutsu an evil smile. Everything else could wait.

He couldn't.

After all…

… he was never good at waiting…

_Yeah, now what's gonna happen? Well your not gonna find out what Mr. Scorpion is thinking next chapter, that's Sakura's POV. Well, I hope you kept your breakfast, lunch, or dinner down. LOL, sorry you have to look up the jap definitions by yourself, cause I'm lazy and evil. Next chapter won't be so gory. So till then, ja mata ne!_


	6. What had happened

**Heart Strings**

_By: Mushi6618_

_Hiya! Back again, with my longest chapter yet. Disclaimer: Do you think I'd be writing this stuff if I actually owned Naruto, the characters belong to Masashi Kishimoto, the lucky...Anyway! Fight scene, oh baby!! Prepare to bow to my sucky skills at trying to write a worthless battle scene!! :ahem: Don't mind my rambling and please...enjoy!_

_Chapter 5_

_Somewhere underground: Sixth Year of the Fifth Hokage _

What had happened…?

Where was she…?

Sakura groggily look up at her surroundings. It was a small dark room. She couldn't say dingy, but it did smell horrible. Her body hurt. A pain in her chest, everything stung. She felt like she'd been drugged. Had she? She tried to focus, to remember…what had happened…

…

It was morning and she didn't want to get up. Her alarm went off in her ear, but she didn't have the mirth or the energy to punch it today. She sat up, and dropped her legs to the floor. She went to look out her window, a grim smile on her face. Sixteen full years and a month since her mother disappeared. Five thousand seven hundred and ninety days since her mother left their new family. She still hadn't found what she was searching for - her mother's kidnapper, a body, or a reason.

Why did her mother _disappear_?

She walked over to her dresser, pulled out the first drawer. There lay her mother's medical uniform, the one she designed her own outfit from. She felt hot tears slip down her cheeks onto the fabric. Mad at herself, she threw the old linen in the drawer slamming it shut in the process. It would be hard to open the next day. She proceeded to yak out the next drawer and toss her usual faded clothing onto the bed. How could she forget to go see her parents, and for almost a month? Fuming she stormed into the bathroom forgetting them. She stepped into the shower, and turned the water on full blast, ice cold.

She let her thoughts drift. It was bugging her, what had happened in the past three weeks. First with Kankuro, then that chief's accident, and that old monk's visit. Not to mention the news that Sasuke had disappeared. She felt her fear creep up her spine. Disappeared. He'd vanished without a trace. He was her friend and old crush. She hoped he was just going on one of his 'ninja' exploration trips, and hadn't had anything bad happen to him.

Sakura's conversation with Kankuro did nothing to soothe her nerves. Kankuro had given her a detailed description of his 'relative'. A large man with his hair pulled back in strips, which had a tail cloaked in a traditional Suna outfit. Everyone was laughing at his wild story, he must have been joking! Temari and Gaara both looked ashamed that their brother could create such an accusation. But when he spoke of the man's piecing glass like eyes, grey-pink glass like eyes, he had Sakura's full attention.

The missing scroll had descriptions of all the Akasuna family, including Sasori. One of his descriptions was that his eyes were a grey with a pink hue. That guy she ran over looked just like the child in the picture. She shook her head, how could he be involved in this? However, it wasn't the only time she'd seen those eyes. There was that young boy at her practice who was giving her a creepy feeling despite his cute appearance. When she went out to get sushi and ended up treating a man who had one of his knives slip, there in the back was a creepy beautiful young girl with those same eyes, who had accidentally bumped into her that same day and ended up giving her an art doll of sorts. She had wanted to give it back but the girl had gone before she could. Then a monk with the same eyes came into her shop and dropped off some rather suspicious scrolls and asked her to translate them. They all had grey-pink eyes.

Was it all a…_coincidence_?

She had studied those scrolls the monk had given her and it just so happened that the one she had lost, Akasuna Family History One, was right in there with the rest of them. Sasori's picture had been crossed out. On top of all that, she felt like she was being watched or followed. There were times when she felt she was even being watched in her room. Sakura turned off the icy blast of water, feeling numb.

What was she going to do?

Wet clothes clung to her as she entered her room. Her body was so numb it was hard to lift her arms, so she was slow and careful taking off her wet shirt. Her body was stiff as she undressed. Warming up with her clean clothes, she began to pack her essentials. Two kunai, four explosive tags, two weapon scrolls, and her regular nursing equipment. She kept not two but three antidote shots in the pouch on her right leg at all times, plus six in a capsule form in case she should need them.

Ready, she left her room running down the stairs and passing through her place of work, stopping to collect the scrolls the monk had given her. She wanted to show them to the Suna siblings before they left. But she had something more important to do today. Outside she began speeding around the corners and zipping through the alley ways of the quite town of Konoha at six in the morning.

As she ran her mind returned back to the young man she had met, what was it? Almost three weeks before? That boy had been suspicious. There was a reasonable explanation for everything that was happening. It wasn't like the world no longer had ninja. It was probably some rogue family member trying to get back at the Akasuna clan, wanting to scare or kill one of the only surviving members. It made slight sense. It would explain the people following her, if she was being followed. Sakura did have the only scrolls relating to the Akasuna family. But there were things she couldn't explain. As she stated, she had the only scrolls, and unless the man perusing her and Kankuro knew how to read the ancients writing, she hardly doubt he'd been able to give such a performance when he fought Kankuro. It was possible though. But the poison and description of attacks wasn't; only members of the Akasuna clan knew of those guarded secrets.

Was he a spy? What was with the people she'd seen with the same eye color? How did that monk obtain the scroll she'd lost? Was Kankuro telling the truth? Was this Sasori character still…alive? She didn't want to dwell on the last question.

But for the time being, why was she being followed?

She had been pretty good at finding chakra signatures, and knew when one was following her. It had only been two hours since she left her house making it just outside of Konoha, and someone was following her. For a moment she had decided to take a detour from her original destination, feeling the familiar sensation of fear rise within her. She had given up her friends, her new mother, and her life to that fear.

Well, this time she wasn't giving in! If it was a foe, bring it on! An enemy, fine! Nothing was going to stop her from visiting her mother's 'grave'. Kamakura Haruno's Memorial. She'd promised her father she'd go every year, and she kept her promise so far. Sakura had already missed the date she would've normally gone on because of work at both the hospital and the library.

It had been a whole three weeks; a month since she'd turned sixteen. Three weeks since Sasuke had gone. He'd missed his birthday. Normally he would have gone with her to her mother's memorial, but for the past few years he had stopped going with her. He had been more in favor of catching up to his brother Itachi, who had just started working as chief detective in their father's police station. Her heart went out to him, but she had realized a long time ago he wasn't for her.

Sakura was passing the Uzumaki residence. She thought for a moment if she should quick stop in just to be safe. It was a liable excuse; after all, she hadn't seen Naruto or his wife Hinata in a long time. Then she felt the strange surge of chakra behind her pick up speed and decided against it. Sakura wasn't willing to get her old friends in trouble, her dear friends that she had shut out of her life. It was good that they were no longer friends, otherwise, Naruto, the boy who obviously had a crush on her, would have never found Hinata. She smiled remembering their wedding; Naruto had been so infatuated with Hinata that they'd married after their first year of dating. Hinata's father didn't much like the fact his only daughter had gotten eloped. So much had happened.

Her thoughts returned back to her situation.

Sakura was between a rock and a hard place. She had to go see her mother's grave, there wasn't any question about it, and she couldn't keep putting it off. But she couldn't tell if the person following her was a friend or a foe. The chakra was hidden well, but that wasn't what made her squirm. The feel of the chakra was…sinister. It made her fear what was behind her. But over the years of hiding her true feelings and trying so hard not to become something that would draw attention, she felt like she'd had enough. Luck never was on her side.

Her mind was made up as she raced out beyond the city where trees and nature replaced houses. Sakura couldn't feel the chakra signature anymore. That was bad; at least she knew where that evil aura was coming from before when she could sense it. Now who knows what or where it was. Sakura turned her thoughts on the road she was taking. It led to Konoha's graveyard which was a good deal away from town. Trees flew past her on either side as she ran, full speed, intended on getting to her destination when something caught her eye. It was a little boy.

Slowing down she jogged up to the child who had appeared to be bent over in pain. Stopping completely she took in the sight before her. She didn't trust this situation. Sakura had remembered this boy, he had watched her practice one of her new strength techniques with Lady Tsunade. She didn't know what to do at that moment. One half of her was telling her not to go near the boy, while the other was telling her to go check if he was alright. Carefully she walked over to the child. He was hiding, gripping his side in pain, face hidden behind light-green hair. He was wearing a pair of black pants and a simple black zip up shirt. Sakura was just behind the young boy, her hand reached out to him.

"Um, Excuse me. Are you hurt? Did you lose your parents?"

The child cringed and drew within himself. Sakura kneeled down on one leg and tried to get a better look at the boy.

"Hey, it's alright. I'm a doctor ya know. So, if it's OK with you I can see what's wrong."

She put on one of her best smiles, trying to comfort the boy by putting a hand on his shoulder. The boy stopped shaking, and an odd voice emitted from the young throat. One that sounded too old for such a young kid.

"I know what you are, I watched _you_."

She was taken by surprise at what he said, a little freaked out.

"Um, I guess you were. I remember you watching me. Now, you were holding your side, is something the matter?"

The kid still wasn't looking at her. Sakura removed her hand and stood up, backing a few feet away. It wasn't just to give the child some space, but to get herself away from the creepy kid as well.

"Yes, I lost my parents and my heart hurts _really_ bad. Would you like to see if you can make it better?"

The look on her face must have been pure sorrow. No parents. She thought of herself going to visit her parent's graves, this boy must have been doing the same. Sakura would play this little boy's game; she worked with kids that said the same things all the time. She let her guard down.

"Well, I guess I could take a look."

She smiled down at the boy as he got up off the ground, still facing away from her. She watched him turn to her, eyes shadowed and mouth in a small smile. He grabbed the small zipper under his chin and pulled it down to the bottom of his shirt reviling his chest. At first she wanted to stop him, no need to see a pretend illness, and then she got a good look at the child's torso.

"Wh-what the…?"

Shock, horror, and pure fright mixed with panic filled the young female medic. There on the boy's chest, right in the center where his heart would be, was a circle. It looked like a cylinder was sticking out. A small symbol was painted on it and Sakura was close enough to see that it read: scorpion.

"_S-Sasori?_"

The little boy lifted his head. He had a wide smile on his perfect boyish features and beautiful grey-pink eyes. She felt breathless, her eyes switching from the boy's face to the thing poking out of his small chest. But that wasn't it; the kid chest appeared to be in…sections. Like he'd been cut apart and glued back together. A puppet?

"Very good little girl. However, I prefer my full name: _Akasuna No Sasori_."

This kid-puppet-thing got on her nerves. He smiled at her, mocking her. Sakura never liked to be mocked, teased, or picked on - no matter how frightened she was. Most of all she hated to be stepped on, by words or feet. After eight years of being obedient and pushing down your true emotions it can do a lot to a person, let alone a teenager. An emotionally stressed teenager who hasn't visited her parent's in a year and who's guilty for being late for the first time. Besides, no teenage girl likes to be called little. So it was no surprise that there was a break in Sakura's built up obedient and subdued personality.

"That's very funny coming from a _little_ boy, who has yet to hit puberty."

The smile disappeared. Sakura wasn't used to saying what was on her mind, which what she had just said came out, and maybe it wasn't the best idea to piss the puppet-kid-guy off. She didn't know where the puppeteer was, but she could tell he was using this kid-puppet to speak to her. Plus, he could be calling himself Sasori to trick her into giving him the scrolls she had in stored in her medical bag. There were doubts in her mind but the fact that the person controlling the puppet could be the true Sasori. So many questions filtered through her head. The kid-Sasori's smile returned.

"_Clever._ I suppose your right, though? Well, I guess I can fix that…"

This did nothing to hinder her questions. Sakura jumped back from the child, almost six feet, when something big and bulky came flying out from the forest. She briefly noted that 'Sasori's' hands moved oddly before the thing jumped in front of him. It was short, large, and could be considered fat. Its black hair was tied back in strips so that it looked like there were claws running over the skull and a bandana covered half of its face. The figure was dressed in a traditional Suna outfit, ripped on the bottom. Most notable of the character, was the rather large scorpion-like tail that protruded out of the man-things back.

"Question Cherry Blossom: What do you fear the most?"

She feared a lot. The curse of Konoha. The loss of her friends lives. The loss of her own life. Now she made sure to add whoever this evil person was to her list. This 'Sasori' thing was going to try and kill her or do something much worst, she could feel it. However, a small smile started to form on her lips. She never could show her true self in town, but this was a stranger trying to kidnap or kill her. So why should she spare him her good side?

"Right now…nothing."

She could see a slight bit of shock pass over 'Sasori's' face before it quickly disappeared, she was acting out of character. It felt good to not have to act like something she wasn't, and for a slight second, she mentally thanked Sasori for that. Sakura positioned her body in a way that if he were to attack she'd be ready. She watched the boy and the other man carefully. 'Sasori' looked up at her with his young face and Sakura suddenly felt like she was outmatched. It was going to be hard to keep up with him, let alone defeat him.

"You can't be the real Akasuna No Sasori. Who are you? What do you want with Kankuro? Why are you following me?"

"_Piff_…One question at a time, girl."

"Fine. Who are you really?"

"You know that answer already."

"I don't believe you."

Their eyes locked.

"Well, I guess I'll just have to prove it to you."

The slumped masked man began to move, shaking and making an odd clattering sound. Without warning his back opened up! Sakura stood, staring in horror as the boy hopped into the man's back, stepping over the stretched cloth, and sat down. The back closed over him and the man-puppet came to life.

"That doesn't e-explain anything…their just puppets."

The man glared at her, as if to say: _"What do you mean? It explains everything." _Which it did, she realized. Kankuro was the only known surviving relative of the Akasuna clan, and therefore was the only one who knew how to work chakra puppetry. 'Sasori' would have read those scrolls - which would have been impossible because of the way they were guarded in Suna and the fact they were written in the ancient's language – in order to learn how to control chakra stings. There were so many facts pointing to Sasori being the real thing. Could an immortal puppet be real?

"But, you - that would make you - how is that _possible_?"

She could just see her face: horror stricken, eyes wide, body shaking, fear griping her insides, and the courage she had leaving her. The man tilted his head in annoyance. A gruffer version of the young boy's voice sounded out.

"_Puppetry_. To your previous questions, I have no interest in my uncles' insufficient offspring. As for you however…"

The man's tail twitched.

Six feet away, Sakura sensed it and jumped back, doing a flip midair and landed another six feet away from the man-puppet. It was a strange sensation, like fingers were brushing up against her - chakra strings. Stunned, 'Sasori' could have ended the battle before it even started if those strings attached to her.

"Hmm, so you felt that? Not many can, _impressive_."

Sakura was sure the man-puppet was smiling. She'd snapped out of her shock, her senses trained on the strange man, focusing on the tail. He moved towards her. She stepped back.

"What's the matter lost the will to fight? _Come_, I'm losing my patience."

She felt like making some rude comment. Sakura didn't know what to do, she'd never fought a real enemy before - just Lady Tsunade and that was practice. What to do? What to do? Her eyes scanned the area, nothing but trees, and it was a good three miles back to the outskirts of town. She was only half a mile away from Konoha's cemetery. There was only one option.

Time to play.

Slowly she lowered her arms, spread her legs, and kept an eye on the man-puppet. The puppeteer had to be around somewhere. But the only chakra location she could sense was coming from the puppet. Was the puppeteer in there? He had to be, to control a puppet you could be no more than ten miles away, she could detect chakra up to thirty miles away. It did make a better offence and defense to be positioned within the puppet; but how was that possible with the boy-puppet in there as well? She didn't see anyone else in the tailed-puppet's back anyway. So where was the chakra coming from?

"I'm tired of waiting little girl. If you won't start then I will."

Lifting his left arm, it was huge with blocks of wood protruding out of it, 'Sasori' aimed at the sky.

"Die."

She just barely had time to move as a stream of poisonous needles shot out of the wood blocks in man's arm when it was released into the air. She went running into the forest were the trees would guard her, they died when the needles hit them. Jumping out she grabbed the two shuriken out of her pouch throwing them at the puppet and ran in the direction of the cemetery, she heard the clank of steel on wood as the shuriken bounced off the puppet's wooden tail.

She sped up by adding chakra to her feet. Her mind whirling around the idea of what would've happened if one of those poisonous needles had hit her. Sakura could hear the three glass vials of antidote clinking in her pouch strapped to her thigh. The chakra signature of Sasori was moving behind her, a good twenty feet away. Sakura opened the pouch and quickly injected one of the antidotes into her arm; throwing the vial onto the edge of the road where later it would hopefully be found by the police of Konoha.

Making it to the entrance of the graveyard, Sakura jumped the eight foot fence. Landing gracefully on the other side and sprinted past the graves. Hopefully she could make it to the undertaker's house and call for help. Sasori's chakra disappeared and she stopped, tense. The graveyard was quite, the reminisce of fog still clinging to the creepy peacefulness of the graves. Suddenly needles peppered the ground around her and she was running again. Dodging left, right, jumping over a head stone, and trying the block the needles with a metal grass stake she'd found. Turning around she could see him. He was sitting upon a tomb, the needles flying out of his mouth, tail whipping behind him. A needle struck her shoulder, but she had gotten a look at the puppets face. Its chin was sectioned off and it had small grey-pink eyes. Its mouth shut and stopped the shower of needles.

"Heh. Those needles have been covered in poison, you seen what they did to the trees back there. It will work quickly, your body will become numb in a few seconds and in three days you'll be dead."

She only smiled as she held onto the wound. The antidote she'd taken would have turned the poison into harmless proteins as soon as it entered her system. She had two more plus six capsules in her pouch. The question was if she fought him could she win? If she used the entire antidote she had twenty four minutes not counting the extra two minutes she still had from the antidote she'd already taken. Sakura began to heal the cut.

"That won't help your situation. It will only waste your chakra."

He must have figured something was up when she paid him no mind. The cut was healed completely and Sakura looked like she hadn't fought at all. She gave him a sly smile which in turn made him narrow his eyes at her.

"You aren't showing signs that the poison has taken effect. Either I forgot to soak one, which is impossible, or you have incredible luck. The other option is - you brought the antidote you made up for that brat. Now the important question: How many antidotes do you have?"

She watched him study her with a glare. He'd figured her out, but not completely. Standing ten feet away from him, Sakura was ready for whatever he might throw at her. She still had four explosive tags and two weapon scrolls.

Sakura charged at the puppet. The tail on the back stopped moving; just as she was four feet away from him Sakura fell to the ground on her right side. The tail would have punctured her pretty face, instead it landed in the ground six inches beside her left shoulder. She'd reached her left hand into the pouch and attached two explosive tags to a weapon scroll and tossed it up at the puppet's face. Sakura rolled over and dashed away before the tags went off sending kunai, swords, and needle weapons into the man-puppet's wooden body.

"Take that, Ojii-chan."

She was breathing heavily; the antidote was starting to wear off. 'Sasori' must have been inside the large puppet. Sakura watched as the smoke from the exploding tags cleared. Both the two puppets and surrounding graves were covered in weapons. She guessed the boy-puppet must not have been built for combat. Where did puppeteer go? Why was that cylinder in the boy's chest missing? Standing from her kneeling position she scanned the area trying to find any hints of chakra. Then she felt it.

He was right behind her.

Sakura turned around, not looking, and chakra-punched where she felt the puppeteer's chakra. Whatever he was, she'd missed. Instead she felt the air shift as something moved passed her, and the slight feeling of finger tips and air rush around her legs. Time stopped at what she just realized…the back half of her skirt had just been flipped up. The voice that spoke was the one the child puppet had been using.

"That was for calling me grandpa, brat. I could have done a lot worse. You destroyed Hiruko and Senyroku."

His words passed right through her ears unnoticed. That pervert had flipped up her skirt, brushing his fingers along her bottom in the process. She was shaking, but not in fear. Her pink hair covered her red face. She cracked her knuckles. If he noticed her rage, he made no comment.

"You_ pervert_."

She turned around, her mint eyes darkening into green flames. Briefly, did she recognize it was the same hot guy she'd almost run over three weeks before. The man she pinned her killer glaze on just stared back at her. It was tiny, but he flinched slightly when her eyes locked with his. She was going to cause him terrible pain.

"I knew that would make you mad."

"_Congratulations_ asshole, you succeeded."

"_Piff_…Name calling, how _immature_."

She came at 'Sasori' again, this time she stopped short, chakra-punching the ground in front of him. The ground broke sending the coffin that was resting peacefully flying up at the handsome puppeteer. Jumping back from the attack, the new 'Sasori' looked shocked. The diversion had worked and she attached the two remaining tags to her last weapons scroll, throwing it at him.

"That's _not_ going to work twice!"

She saw the tail of his broken puppet move, blocking the scroll from triggering on him. The tags exploded and the weapons only hit earth and stone, the puppeteer landed safely several feet away from the projectiles.

"Not bad for a _beginner_. But come now, is that all you have? You need to be extraordinary to be part of my collection."

Having no clue what the young man was talking about and starting to question his sanity, Sakura ran a list of possible attacks that might work in her head. 'Sasori' must have sensed her planning because he moved quickly, bringing his arm up she watched as he moved his fingers. Two figures appeared behind him. A monk and a girl.

"I'd like you to meet Hinshu and Oroka. You've meet both before, but you never had a proper introduction."

She remembered both. Oroka with her marigold hair and pretty features. Hinshu's monk like appearance and shaved head. Both had grey-pink eyes like their master, dressed in red cloaks. Sasori raised both his hands, the sleeves on his Suna outfit falling down. Sakura noticed the lines on his arms. Was this young man another puppet? 'Sasori's' hands moved and he smiled showing his teeth.

"Now, let's do this."

The two puppets sprang at her and she barely had time to notice the weapons hidden in their cloaks. They came at her, Oroka with a left-handed sword and Hinshu's right hand holding an axe; both held kunai. Sakura picked up two of the weapons leftover from the scrolls, blocking the oncoming attacks. The puppets were immensely strong, and had succeeded in cutting her up pretty good. The axe was swung at her side, making a shallow cut. The sword zigzagged down her back when she didn't move quickly enough. Kunai were making small cuts all over her body, tearing her clothes. Getting fed up she punched the monk in the face, the puppet fell to the ground with the force and she crushed both of its hands with her feet. She ducked out of the way when the girl came flying up behind her, reaching up she grabbed hold of the cloak with one hand, pulled back and flung the female puppet over against a large tomb. With the contact the puppet's weapons were dropped and Sakura did the same in favor for another antidote.

Seconds after the injection both puppets were on her. She tried to beat them back, but Sakura's flesh covered hands didn't hurt them as much as their wooden skin-like ones did her. Sakura was covered in bruises and blood when she'd finally jumped away from the killer puppets. Her breathing was labored and she was losing a lot of blood. The pair of puppets came at her again. Focusing all of her strength in her fists. She jumped up on a gravestone just inches away from her attackers. Bringing her arms back she jumped at them, her fists bright and aflame with hot-pink chakra.

"_Kitsui ryoku sakuranbo __anaakeki_!!" (Intense power cherry punch!!)

She hit both the puppets in the chest, smashing through their stomachs just as her second antidote ran out. Hinshu was completely destroyed, and Oroka looked like she couldn't function anymore. She hated saying the name of her attack, but she had to give credit to Maito Guy since he gave her the idea. He picked out the name…

"Interesting…but a lame title."

That she'd agree with. Sakura turned to look at him, noticing once again what a bishōnen he was. If he wasn't trying to kill her she would have swooned.

"Centering most of your chakra in the knuckles then integrating that chakra into every muscle in and around your hands creating an iron clad fist attack. Not bad. But not good either. You used a lot of chakra my young _iki-ningyō_."

Did he just call her his living doll? Sakura stood up wincing at the pain her body had been put through. She had a serious cut on the side of her stomach, a black right eye, and tons of other small cuts and bruises which covered her body. She was sure she broke a couple ribs and had a small concussion as well. She got back in a fighting position still intent on destroying whatever this 'Sasori' character sent her way.

"Damn. I hadn't wanted you to get so damaged. It won't work if your skin isn't in perfect condition. I guess I should have waited."

He gave her a disappointed look, Sakura's own face reflecting a sort-of curious horror. She watched him lift his hand, making a fist and putting it against his right eye; he appeared to be annoyed with his mistake. Sakura chanced a glance at her surroundings; there wasn't much she could use against him. Nothing. It wasn't worth the glance. When she looked up, the man pulling the strings was gone. Where did he go?!

A pair of hands wrapped around her torso in a tight grip and her back was crushed against a hard chest. Sakura felt his chakra pulsing, it was coming from the circular lump on the man's chest, pressing into her back. She brought her foot up behind her and heard the slight sound of wood breaking. A nasty curse word followed. So he was a puppet to! Sakura brought her head forward and slammed it backwards. Her hard head met Sasori's wooden one with a sickening crack. He let go of her and she sprang away from him, landing in the dirt next to a small grave marker. Sitting up she looked at the new features of her attacker.

First thing she noticed was the wood pieces that were scattered on the ground in front of him. Sakura had kicked 'Sasori' very hard. A small facial object lay with the other bits and pieces of wood. Looking at the once beautiful face, she'd noticed his nose had broken off so that there was only a hole; cracks had spread like an infection across his face. His pissed off expression was ruined without the perfectly sculptured appendage. Small giggles started to bubble up out of her mouth but stopped as he started towards her.

"You _bitch_."

She watched as he tried to move his left leg. It turned out that kick did a lot more than just piss him off. Using her small opening she pushed her body off the ground, and jumped away from the deranged broken puppet. Sakura was reaching her chakra limit. He was still moving towards her, moving his leg manually with the help of his left hand. His right hand moved, and the one puppet- Oroka- blocked Sakura's view of him. The beautiful puppet fell to the ground leaving the female puppet standing. Oroka turned around; the puppet faced fixed in a mock expression- a sly grin. The lady-puppet ran towards Sakura, swinging a punch at the flesh of the girls open wound and missed. Four poison needles protruded from both fists of the puppet-doll. Sakura dodged a right hook to her head, kick to the stomach, jab to the shoulder, upper cut to the chin, and leg sweep that almost upset her balance. Sakura was doing fine, till the front of the puppets tunic opened revealing the same cylinder as the boy-puppet had. Sakura's mind made the connection to late.

A punch connected with Sakura's stomach, poison needles digging into the flesh just underneath her breast and punctured her lungs. The damaged kunoichi was thrown three feet back from the force, her battered body tossed along the ground flipping and rolling across the dirt finally slamming to a stop on a headstone. Her body had hit so that she was facing her opponent, slouch-sitting up, her legs spread, back against the cool stone.

With her eyes half closed she seen the female-puppet turn away from her, walking in the opposite direction. Taking the opportunity she shakily pulled out her last vial of antidote; next would be the less effective capsules. The needle pierced the skin of her thigh as Sakura injected the specially contained compound of herbs into her blood system. The vial rolled out of her hand empty and she started to heal the needle wounds in her chest. Sakura tried to move her arm. Panicked, she looked down at her body, making a pain filled moan in the process. She couldn't move her body. Slowly her limbs were becoming numb, tingling. What was going on?

"Three is the magic number."

If she could have jerked her head Sakura would have at the sound of his sing-song voice. But all she could do was stare, wide eyed forward as the broken face of the young bishōnen placed a wooden hand upon her scarred and bleeding shoulder.

"I should have told you. With this particular poison you can only use the antidote twice. After the third usage, the body would've been infected with so much poison that the antidote would start to lose its original effect. It will still stop the dangerous aspects of it, but it will numb the body to the point of paralysis."

He moved around her, his hand sliding over to her neck. She could now see his face clearly, the gaping hole in the center revealing a hidden needle gun. He smiled at her, the fear on her face reflecting in his unique glass eyes. She couldn't speak or she'd tell him to get his hands off her collar bone.

"Did you know that if the slightest drop of the same poison were to enter your system after the third injection the body instantly loses its motor skills?"

Her heart picked up speed as the fingers that slipped down were her heart was and reached into the hole in the puppet's face to pull out a poison drenched needle. Smiling wide enough to add a few more cracks to his face, the broken puppet brought the needle up to her throat.

"Don't worry, within seconds you pass out as well."

With the sick smile of the young man's deformed face still haunting her mind, Sakura felt a prick in her neck. Her world went black, body falling forward onto the chest of the bastard who had defeated her in her first real battle.

...

_Wow, not it gets interesting. Sakura's in Sasori's lair...oh I think I got a nosebleed...Well, next chapter will be Sasori POV where will be going over his view of the battle. I love those needle things when they were shot at Chiyo and Sakura, it was such a cool looking episode. Very girly. Anyone notice I make sick humor out of certian things in the story? And :pleasehaveJiraiyainmind: that I'm going to turn Sasori into not only a pervert but a mega pervert. Well, heh, till next chapter. Oh, p.s. thanks for all the reviews and if you get a chance visit my deviant art page I uploaded some pics for this story! Mushi6618 over and out!_


	7. Her warm living body

**Heart Strings**

_By: Mushi6618_

_Yeah, Naruto is the property of Masashi Kishimoto, kay? I no own. Well, back again with another chapie and hopefully explaining a few things left out of the other chapter. Oh, warning: Japanese cursing, American cursing, and sick humor. Plus a horny Sasori, but he doesn't know he is yet. Hahaha. Um, yeah. Please, enjoy._

_Chapter 6_

'_Never Forgotten' Graveyard, Konoha: Sixth Year of the Fifth Hokage _

It was ironic. For some reason, almost all the women he'd captured in his lifetime somehow ended up in his arms. It wasn't anything sexual - really - part of the reason he turned himself into a puppet was to get away from his body's human malfunctions. But as Sasori brought the poisoned needle down onto the smooth beaten skin of his victim, and as she went unconscious - her weight falling onto his wooden chest, a surge of human feeling went through his heart. He just knelt there then, with the girl's dead weight upon him.

It wasn't often that the chakra that flowed within Sasori's puppet body gave any reaction to things other than his own movements. This girl - Sakura - had made his chakra mimic his body's original functions. It had started just this morning with something as innocent as the girl changing out of her wet clothes. The feeling reminded him of what his human body would have done in the situation; a feeling akin to an orgasm. His mind had blanked out, chakra surging and tingling, his heart had been beating so fast he thought it would jump out of the cavity in his chest. Sakura was unconsciously pulling on his 'heart strings'.

Sasori came out of his thoughts more confused than ever. He'd been a puppet for two hundred and ninety nine years and seven months, having turned himself into a puppet at the age of twenty. It allowed him to keep his young appearance, but he never used his own human puppet body anymore; being more in favor of what he could accomplish with a regular puppet body with the original's looks. In all Sasori's years he'd never liked women, not since his grandmother lied to him about his parent's death at the age of seven. His human body had told him he liked women, but his mind said not to bother with them. Women were trouble. They'd tell you what you want to hear, lie, and cheat to get whatever they wanted. So why was it that now, after he'd removed any trace of being able to be physically attracted to _anything_, was his body reacting to some female brat who barely held her own in battle?

Not being able to answer his mind's question, Sasori picked up the girl, noting the damage her body had done to the grave behind her. It was broken; a crack had formed from impact in the middle of the stone block. He read the inscription.

"Here remains a prayer. A hope that Konoha's beloved Kamakura Kusabana will someday be found and returned to her rightful place as a friend, wife, mother, and doctor."

He stared at the memorial for a moment, faintly remembering hearing the name before. Brushing it from his mind, he shifted Sakura's weight in his arms, carrying her bridal style past the debris of their fight. Gently he laid her down on a bench and began collecting his puppets. 

Hinshu was inoperable, Oroka could be maneuvered but was endanger of falling apart, Hiruko was going to need a new body altogether, and he'd have to redo most of Senyroku. Sasori didn't expect he would have to repair the puppet he was using now.

"Heh…"

When the girl kicked his groin, she'd manage to completely shatter the wood leaving only his back half connected to his legs. Walking was difficult, and he was having trouble seeing since she'd smashed the back of her head into his nose. Spotting the said appendage, he bent over.

"_Shit._"

The cracks managed to spread far enough on his face that they reached his right eye socket, causing the glass eye to fall out - held midair by a thin wire. It was odd looking at the world with one eye twelve inches from the ground and the other eye further away. Grabbing his dangling eye with one hand and swiping his nose off the ground with the other, he turned to face the woman who damaged him so. He glared at her.

"Damn girl. If I'm going to get anything done I'll have to switch bodies…"

Turning away, Sasori pulled out a maroon scroll and opened it with his chakra stings, with a loud poof a puppet appeared in front of him, another copy of the original. He was glad Sakura gave a good fight, but he never really did enjoy removing his heart from one puppet to the next. He had to, so he put up with the discomfort. Within his new puppet body, Sasori began cleaning up the mess their fight had created. He was good at repairing things: puppet bodies, buildings, even the landscape itself. By the time Sasori was done it'd looked like nothing had taken place in or on the way to the graveyard. Pulling out five scrolls he sealed his five damaged puppets into each, tucking them away in his sleeves, knowing that the girl was going to be asleep for quite some time.

With his puppet body fully functional, he easily walked over to the unconscious kunoichi. Sasori stood over her, watching her breath and got a close up look at his next human puppet. Beautiful, smart, powerful. Yes, she was what he'd been looking for. She'd been smart enough to not only make an antidote for his poison, but timed when to use it. She'd beaten the crap out of his puppets, including himself; and as he looked at her, he could tell she was magnificent. He scowled. He hadn't meant to damage her body, all he wanted to do was catch her off guard and poison her, not kill her or beat her up. No she'd have to be alive for his new jutsu to work, but for it to come out the way he wanted, he couldn't have all these bruises and cuts covering her body.

Sasori touched the side of her abdomen; it had a shallow gash and was bleeding. His wooden hand move to touch her brow, where black had shown up around her swollen eye. For all his medical knowledge on the human body, he wasn't a medical ninja. He couldn't_ heal_. For the first time since he was alive, Sasori panicked. He'd never be able to find another human with such qualifications in this day and age, not with the way the world was going. If only he could get her to his home! (which he thought was more of a lab) He'd be able to bandage her up, mix healing herbs into her, and save her from dying on him before he got a chance to create her into one of his finest works of art. Then he could keep her alive long enough for her skin and wounds to heal, and when that happened…he would turn her into his first living human puppet.

Picking Sakura up, unconsciously sliding his hands long her thighs, Sasori held her to his chest. His elbow held Sakura's head up, his right hand on her back, the other arm holding both her legs. Her bright eyes were closed, mouth bleeding - slightly agape, still breathing heavy, and her chest rising a falling in tune with her lungs. He stopped his unintentional breathing, and felt that surge of chakra rush through his heart again, spinning his mind and putting him off balance for a moment. His grip tightened on Sakura as the tiny thought of kissing her perfect bloody-pink lips crossed his mind. Sasori decided to change the subject to something else till he got them both 'home'.

As he took off to find one of his entrances Sasori thought of his and the girl's fight. That would be enough to distract him, right?

…

Sasori's patience was always his downfall, but he had wanted to get a head start on his new project. He'd made it to Konoha in a dead run in an hour and a half. Sasori had just come out of a hidden entrance as his victim rounded a corner. He could have touched her hair as she passed his hidden form. It was still early, seven-thirty-four to be exact. He began following her, but she must have noticed him after some time because her pace faltered. She began to slow down, probably deciding what to do about the situation. - Keep heading to where you were going or turn off? - She sped up. Using the amount of knowledge on Konoha's layout, he'd guessed she was headed for the perfectly titled: Never Forgotten Graveyard. It was located quite a ways from the village. Not many people were buried in that graveyard, but there were many graves thanks to him over the years.

Looking around he'd noticed they were just going into the forest. He stopped, concentrated his chakra and performed a series of hand signals.

"Yusou no Jutsu."

Instantly he was transported a mile from where originally he was. Taking out two of the scrolls that were sitting in his sleeves, he summoned two of his favorite puppets. One was small and had sea-foam colored hair, a human puppet. The other was large, with small eyes and strips of black hair, a non-human puppet. He was a little opposed to using Hiruko because of its age and it being one of the first puppets he'd ever made. Senyroku, he had found dead in a gutter. 

The young boy had been beaten and tossed, he supposed, out for the rats. It was the boy's beautiful hair which had caught his attention; such a beautiful color should be immortalized. Later that same day he'd found the boy's parents and had killed both for their neglect.

Picking up the young puppet with his chakra strings Sasori removed his heart from the puppet body he was using, and placed it in the chest cavity of Senyroku. He felt detached and weightless while not in a puppet and then he felt the wooden-flesh body of the puppet. Senyroku's eyes flipped open; he'd used his original grey-pink eye color in all his puppets. Standing with the maroon haired puppet he propped it up behind a tree next to Hiruko; just in case. Stepping out of the forest, knowing that Hiruko was waiting just beyond the bushes, he got ready for his performance.

She was only half a mile away, when he crouched in the direction of the graveyard. He sensed as she approached him, slowing down, cautious. His acting was perfect as he pretended to fake pain. She approached; he could feel the heat of her hand close to his small shoulder.

"Um, Excuse me. Are you hurt? Did you lose your parents?"

Worried? That had taken him off guard. He didn't act when he cringed at the thought of his parents, and it was an involuntary action to draw into himself. His family was a touchy subject. Sasori felt her knell beside him, their legs almost touching…

"Hey, it's alright. I'm a doctor ya know. So, if it's ok with you I can see what's wrong."

He could have laughed. Truly this was too easy. Had she not figured out what he was? Shaking from held in laughter, it stopped at her touch. Her hand, her small delicate hand placed itself upon his small back. Sasori was reminded of what he was doing.

"I know what you are, I watched _you_."

"Um, I guess you were. I remember you watching me. Now, you were holding your side, is something the matter?"

Was this girl that innocent or just dumb? No she wasn't dumb just inexperienced. Life rule number one: 'If your being followed by someone who you think can't be trusted, do not trust anything that seems innocent a mile down the road.' He felt her get up and move away from his body, as if what he was thinking was transferred into her own mind. He decided to speak coming up with the most disturbingly cute thing he could think up.

"Yes, I lost my parents and my heart hurts _really_ bad. Would you like to see if you can make it better?"

He hadn't looked at her when he said it. She'd see the smile he was trying to hold back. It was just so much fun playing with this little girl.

"Well, I guess I could take a look."

Cue a manic laugh somewhere. Was this girl for real! Standing up he turned around, the green bangs of the boy's hair hiding his eyes, he couldn't hide his smile. Sasori felt his heart attach his chakra stings to his arm, hand, and fingers. Soon he was pulling down the zipper of his shirt. He wondered what her reaction would be when she seen the beauty of his art.

"Wh-what the…?"

She understood the construct of the human body, so when he saw Sakura give him a horror and sickening look, Sasori made sure not to laugh. Not many could comprehend what it takes to look at something so…eye catching.

"_S-Sasori?_"

He tilted his head a fraction of an inch. Had she made the connection so fast? Or was she playing dumb and just reading what his heart so clearly stated in kanji. He looked into her eyes, his own reflecting with the shock that shown within them.

"Very good little girl. However, I prefer my full name: _Akasuna No Sasori_."

He knew mocking her would set her off. He'd seen what had happened to a boy with short spiky blonde hair, who had said the wrong thing and was sent flying. Or maybe she'd draw within herself like she'd do with everyone else she'd met in the town who weren't past friends. He watched her expressions – fear, anger, distaste and _smug_.

"That's very funny coming from a _little_ boy, who has yet to hit puberty."

He hadn't expected that, and like her he didn't like to be made fun of either. Smile gone for the moment, he sustained the idea of ranting about how the life cycle of the human body didn't come into question with his puppets. But his smile returned when he realized what she was doing. Planning, she was thinking about her situation, and distracting him in the process.

"_Clever._ I suppose your right, though? Well, I guess I can fix that…"

He moved slightly and she jumped away from him. It wasn't a very far, maybe six feet, he wouldn't have problem. He was actually glad he could use Hiruko. Sending chakra out through his fingers in concentrated lines, he brought forth Hiruko out of it hiding place. The three hundred and twelve year old puppet landed in between him and his opponent, he made sure his hands were hidden from the girls view. Hiruko was designed to fight, since at the time it was made, Suna was at war. He'd always loved to use Hiruko in battle, because of all the mechanisms and weapons that had evolved with the puppet.

"Question Cherry Blossom: What do you fear the most?"

Watching her emotions again he noted the changes – confusion, fear, thoughtfulness, anger, pride, and then she smiled…

"Right now…nothing."

The shock he felt must have accidentally converted to the facial expressions, because her smile seemed to spread. He made sure the look was replaced by a menacing glare quickly. This girl was starting to come out of her shell, and she must have realized it. That might not mean anything, or it could make his capture of Sakura much harder. He realized it was going to be for the harder as she positioned herself to attack him. Her change in attitude was going to make this fight longer than he had planned.

"You can't be the real Akasuna No Sasori. Who are you? What do you want with Kankuro? Why are you following me?"

What a stupid question to ask. He knew this girl could make the connection. Though, it was one of those thoughts that were out there he supposed. However, it annoyed him to no end when people fired a jubilee of questions at him.

"_Piff_…One question at a time, girl."

"Fine. Who are you really?"

"You know that answer already."

"I don't believe you."

Their eyes locked. His looking through Senyroku's into the mint fire of Sakura's.

"Well, I guess I'll just have to prove it to you."

Attaching his chakra stings, he opened up his battle puppet. Because of its old age Hiruko cricked and creaked, making grinding noises as it went from immobile to living. The puppet was hollow inside which allowed him to slip in through the opening he'd installed in its back. With a flick of his fingers Senyroku-Sasori hopped inside the larger puppet enclosing Hiruko's protective body around him. One of Sasori's favorite parts of Hiruko was the scorpion tail that came out of the 'mouth' that was Hiruko's back. He could send chakra through the tail and have it act as an extra appendage when needed. In other words it acted as a third arm; it was useful since he couldn't directly attach chakra stings to his opponent while inside the man-puppet's body.

"That doesn't e-explain anything…their just puppets."

He had involuntary gotten used to showing emotion through his finger movements over the years. So when he heard the gears on Hiruko's face began to work, he knew that the glare on his face was being mimicked on Hiruko's. He watched her face through the eyes of his puppet. Sakura face was showing him that she was trying to disprove his theory. She gently bit her bottom lip, and his chakra flared. When she made the realization, her face blanched with fear and horror. She looked like she was even starting to shake.

"But, you - that would make you - how is that _possible_?"

How? Well, that wasn't exactly as stupid a question as earlier. He cocked his head in annoyance, Hiruko following suit. Using the speaker he installed in the back of Hiruko's neck, he spoke and was glad to hear it was working properly by the way it lowered the octaves, making his voice sound older, deeper, and gruff.

"_Puppetry_. To your previous questions, I have no interest in my uncles' insufficient offspring. As for you however…"

He flicked his fingers, sending his chakra up through Hiruko's tail and out, directed towards Sakura. The girl must have had a heightened chakra sense, because as soon as he brushed his chakra along hers she had moved, preventing him from securing his strings.

"Hmm, so you felt that? Not many can, _impressive_."

He felt his leather like lips pull back in a grin. This girl was beginning to show signs of being a worthy opponent. However, when he went to move towards her, she had matched his step, and moved back. Now, why would she do that? She started this fight, and he wanted to get it over with.

"What's the matter lost the will to fight? Come, I'm losing my patience."

Sasori watched as defiance and anger appeared on her face. The anger disappeared after a moment but the defiance still remained. He noticed her eyes moving, looking at everything but him. He guessed that her knowledge of puppetry was limited and that she was now trying to bring reality back into the situation. Obviously she didn't believe that he could be the 'real' Sasori. Through Hiruko's eyes he saw her own land back on him. She must have realized that she had to fight him, her body moving into a fighting position. She'd lowered her arms out in front of her and spread her legs. It was interesting to watch and he couldn't help but notice how her unzipped skirt moved with the motion, revealing the _skin-tight_ spandex. How he would like to _touch_…

"I'm tired of waiting little girl. If you won't start then I will."

He brought Hiruko's left arm up.

"Die."

He didn't mean it as he clicked the trigger, and Hiruko's 'Needle Rocket' broke free of the puppets arm. It shot off using liquefied pressurized carbon dioxide, which make a cloud of silver smoke as it shot up into the air. He's angled the projectile so that the needles situated in the blocks of wood sticking out of the arm would shoot out at his target. It'd render the girl helpless and cause minimum damage to her body. As a plus, it was a beautiful attack.

What he hadn't planned for this attack was the row of trees behind the girl, for which she was using as a shield. How annoyingly clever. If he were to have used the attack - in say a cave - the only thing she could have done was dodge the needles. He watched as the trees withered from the poison. On humans the toxin had a chance to spread and mix with other toxins in the blood stream slowing its effectiveness, plants didn't have that luxury, so they were faster to kill than a mammal. Two shuriken were coming at him just as Sasori noticed Sakura move. He brought the scorpion-like tail down and managed to defect them as if they were flies being swatted away. He never took his eyes off Sakura's running form.

She ran fast. He could see the blue chakra coming off her heels like flames; she stopped and then jumped. Kicking off the ground she cleared what appeared to be an eight foot gate with an iron inscription reading: Never Forgotten. Hiruko wasn't very good mobile. It was slow when running and could only jump six feet or the landing would break its rather old prosthetics.

"Yusou no Jutsu."

His transportation jutsu was handy, for just a few seconds your entire chakra signature disappears. When you reappear your enemy has no clue where you'll be; especially in a foggy area. It was an added bonus that it took Hiruko along, with the proper amount of time and chakra of course. So perched atop a small tomb, Hiruko's mask was torn off and his 'Shower of Needles' attack began. She had run past him and he had started the attack to late, missing her by - literally - a hairs inch. But that didn't stop him, he kept up the attack and he watched as she tried to dodge or maneuver around the needles and graves. Was she even using a grass stake to defend herself? Truly this girl was a noob, but he'd give her credit for her creativeness. Then it happened, he seen her stop and the needle hit its mark in the middle of herglenohumeral joint. It wasn't deep, just a nick really, but it was all he needed for the poison to take effect.

"Heh. Those needles have been covered in poison, you seen what they did to the trees back there. It will work quickly, your body will become numb in a few seconds and in three days you'll be dead."

He was confused. Why had she smiled at him? Why wasn't her body going numb? Why was she just healing that small _stupid_ wound and _not_ collapsing on the _ground_??

"That won't help your situation. It will only waste your chakra."

Her smile turned sly, like she was hiding key information.

Then it hit him.

"You aren't showing signs that the poison has taken effect. Either I forgot to soak one, which is impossible, or you have incredible luck. The other option is - you brought the antidote you made up for that brat. Now the important question: How many antidotes do you have?"

She could've had one to twenty on her person. It was a good thing he knew the secret to his poison that his little kunoichi didn't. He watched her get ready to fight a good ten feet away, reading Hiruko when she began to charge at him. Sasori wasn't going to strike her, just make her flinch enough so he could get a good shot in. But she had slid to the ground just as his tail was about to pull back, it caused him to momentarily forget his plan and the wooden point headed straight for the ground. He was glad his tail only came six inches from her face. Distracted he hadn't noticed the interesting weapon she pulled from her pouch located on her rear. He had just enough time to transport his heart out of Hiruko and Senyroku.

If he'd had more time he could have saved his beloved puppets. Half a mile away he found himself in his original body's look-alike and quickly transported himself back to the graveyard just in time to hear…

"Take that, Ojii-chan."

_Oh_, was this girl going to get it. _Grandpa_? She just called him _Grandpa_? He looked over at the remains of his puppets and cringed. He looked over at her. She was breathing heavily her chest moving with the motion. Her body shaking from the adrenaline and a new shot of antidote that was probably rushing through her veins. He felt like getting her back for the 'grandpa' comment with something. Plus he had to get back at her for what she did to his puppets, and what can be worse than humiliation?

"Yusou no Jutsu."

He was right behind her.

He was quick enough to dodge the punch that came whistling at his head, admitted he was a little surprised. Sasori seen his opening. It was like slow motion for him as he passed her, veering past her punch and gliding, just barely, the lightest of touches, two fingers a longer her backside. With a flick of his forefinger the back half of Sakura's faded unzipped skirt was flipped upwards. It gave him an excellent view of her round…

"That was for calling me grandpa, brat. I could have done a lot worse. You destroyed Hiruko and Senyroku."

Yes, he had to explain his reasons. Sasori couldn't just say he wanted to see what her ass looked like in tight spandex. If he could have blushed at the thought, he would've. He heard a cracking sound and turned around six feet from her. Outwardly he didn't even flinch, he was trained not to. But he was glad puppets didn't need to use bathrooms. Scary. He knew it would set her off, but he didn't know it would make her look like one of those mass murderers, it wasn't pretty.

"You_ pervert_."

He looked in her eyes. Sasori thought back to his human body and the poor boy she had pummeled. This time he did flinch. If he still had his body, the look she gave him promised a lifetime of beating.

"I knew that would make you mad."

"_Congratulations_ _Asshole_, you succeeded."

For that he was going to piss her off again.

"_Piff_…Name calling, how _immature_."

Sakura charged at him again getting four feet from him. He watched momentarily, confused as she punched the ground in front of him. Sasori did remember he was in a graveyard that did have graves with dead people in them. Briefly did he catch the name on the grave that read 'R.I.P. Asuma Sarutobi' as it came hurdling toward his face propelled by a chakra infused punch. No amount of training could wipe that shock off your face, puppet or not. The kicker was the girl had just pulled another one of her weapons from her pouch. Sasori noticed the same design as before and tags on the scroll.

"That's _not_ going to work twice!"

He quickly shot out his chakra, creating a thin line and attached it to Hiruko's damaged tail. Sasori flung it at the scroll, causing it to trigger the bomb tags which set off the weapons inside of the scroll and showered the tail and graves with an assortment of deadly cutlery. All the while he stood a safe eight feet from the weaponry facing his prey.

"Not bad for a _beginner_. But come now, is that all you have? You need to be extraordinary to be part of my collection."

Weapon scrolls? Bomb tags? Couldn't she think of something more creative? She might be planning something, he hoped. Well, maybe he'd just have to give her something to use a good attack on? He was beginning to enjoy making these first moves.

"I'd like you to meet Hinshu and Oroka. You've meet both before, but you never had a proper introduction."

Hinshu was hard to defeat, he gave the old bastard that. The monk was seventy-six when he was killed by Sasori and had a great love for axe weapons. He left the man the way he was. 

The old man was ugly as hell, plus he'd do well as an attacker. Sasori loved to give new names to his puppets, with a few exceptions. Oroka was once named Mibae. He had picked her up when she was walking home from school. He'd spent a considerable amount of time watching her. Sasori had been displeased to find that she didn't take care of her body as he had hoped. So figuring that if beating up her body in life was brought her so much fun, then why not turn her into something that could take a beating? At the time he'd been angry, and had ended up turning her into a weapon. He didn't really regret it.

Sasori smiled as he brought his arms and hands up, flexing his chakra strings and attaching them to his puppets.

"Now, let's do this."

His fingers twitched as the two puppets came to life and proceeded after Sakura. One movement from his pinky and weapons were drawn, ready to attack. The girl was good, but barely keeping up. Hinshu's axe cut into her side and Oroka's sword had almost struck true. The kunai they both held were also doing a considerable amount of damage. Had the girl not taken any antidote she'd have been paralyzed and collapsed on the ground several times over.

His fingers vibrated and he looked to see Hinshu take a punch to the face. Its body hitting the ground with the force sending the axe in its hand flying towards him. Sasori ducked, not paying attention to Hinshu, turning back to notice that the monk's hands were both fractured pieces of wood-like human flesh. Mad, Sasori shot Oroka over at Sakura. The puppet missed and instead was caught by Sakura. The girl flung the poor puppet by its red cloak at the same tomb he'd been sitting on earlier. Oroka crashed into the side of the building, weapons released as the vibration went up through his chakra stings and into his hands. It would have hurt if it were to have reached his heart.

It was a clanging sound and then a small click. Sasori looked over to the girl just as she injected herself. Was it her third injection? No. That meant she knew about the time limit to the poison's antidote. Somehow it annoyed him. He sent out his strings, and the puppets were alive again. He was getting tired of this game and his lack of patience was causing him to make mistakes. For a moment he'd forgotten that he wasn't suppose to seriously damage her, and ended up having both come at her with bare fists. She could barely fight back, let alone hold them off. He pulled back with the thought of finally beating his prize and sent the two puppets at her once more.

"_Kitsui ryoku sakuranbo __anaakeki_!!"

He did not see that coming. Sasori thought the girl ran out of chakra long ago. He couldn't believe her attack; it must have taken a most of her remaining chakra to use. Then again he really didn't know how much chakra her body possessed. Sasori didn't think his puppets survived the attack.

But really got him, was that title. He heard of another man getting beat by someone who shouted insane phrases as well, something about fish and eye brows?

"Interesting…but a lame title."

He couldn't help but smile at her reaction, apparently she agreed with him.

"Centering most of your chakra in the knuckles then integrating that chakra into every muscle in and around your hands creating an iron clad fist attack. Not bad. But not good either. You used a lot of chakra my young _iki-ningyō_."

He watched as she tried to stand up, and once again assumed a fighting stance. Wasn't she just full of energy? It was then that he noticed her condition: bloody, bruised, and thoroughly beaten.

"Damn. I hadn't wanted to get you so damaged. It won't work if your skin isn't in perfect condition. I guess I should have waited."

What a disappointment. He watched her face contort into something akin to horror as he brought a fist to his eye. It was something he did when he was annoyed or when he wanted to concentrate on a particular thought. But this didn't mean he was day dreaming, no, he watched as she made her mistake. Sakura looked at her surrounding for just a minute. He knew what he was going to do.

Sasori transported himself just as she looked towards him. She didn't even scream when he came up behind her, grabbing her from behind. His heart was so close to her, he could feel her warmth seep into his chakra laced heart. He began to feel that familiar chakra surge when…

**CRACK!!**

Her foot shot up into his groin. There was pain and she had _destroyed_ yet another one of his puppets. That made _four_!!

"_Chikusho!! Nande kuso?_ _Kono-kuso!! Baka honna!! Temeo koros kono baka yariman-onna!! Kono joro!! Manko!! Do digata ni kazana ho akeruzou!! Baka ona!! Kuso yarou!! Ama!! Baka neingino!!_

Sasori tended to curse when he was mad.

**BAM-CRAAACCCKKK!!**

He felt his face give way as her head slammed into his. It hurt but such pain only lasted a few seconds when the wood was broken and his chakra had nothing to attach to. He let go of her bringing his hands up to his head trying to steady himself. Sakura was sitting next to a small grave marker. He heard laughter, the beginnings of a giggle. How dare she, he thought as he tried to walk towards her.

"You _bitch_."

He was having trouble moving. His hip joint and metal spleen happened to be the only thing keeping him attached to his legs. The whole of his groin had broken off. He grabbed his right leg and swung it forward. Just as he got some distance the girl jumped up from her spot. He tried to go after her but couldn't in his current body. Sasori thought quickly, and then he spotted Oroka. Removing his right hand from his leg he attached chakra strings to Oroka. The female puppet stood before him, sly grin still plastered on her face since she first tried to seduce him, and he exchanged bodies.

He never really felt feminine in a female puppet. It was an odd thought as he charged at Sakura. Punching at the girl's abdomen wound and once again missing. He never was a very good hand to hand fighter as he tried to punch her, kick her, jab her, punch her again, and finally try to sweep Sakura off her feet. Sasori had made sure to do this with one of his favorite weapons, small but effective, needles. Four in each hand, soaked in poison, and he knew her antidote ran out. But more importantly he knew it would be her third usage of the antidote.

Once more she had made a mistake and he realized he must have too. While he managed to land a punch on her, sending the four poisoned needles into her lungs, he could tell she'd figured out something important about him. As she was flung back from the force of the attack he looked down to see what she'd been staring at. It was his heart. Not even looking at her Sasori turned around, walked away a few feet, and brought the broken maroon haired puppet up to him.

For a moment he wondered if she had figured out his little trick when he hear a tiny click and the sound of a small empty vial rolling across the dirt. His smile went from one puppet to another, and Oroka fell to the ground. He walked back to his prey, noting her appearance: spread out before him, covered in blood, and panting. Then she moaned. It was pained, but it was enough to send a shiver through his chakra and into his heart. He wanted to touch her then. Two feet away from her he could see the look in her eyes: What was going on?

"Three is the magic number."

He was a little too happy when he said it, but this battle had finally come to an end and he was the victor. He watched her stare at him horrified, as he came up to her inches away from her face.

"I should have told you. With this particular poison you can only use the antidote twice. After the third usage, the body would've been infected with so much poison that the antidote would start to lose its original effect. It will still stop the dangerous aspects of it, but it will numb the body to the point of paralysis."

He could have laughed at her expression. Moving into a knelling position, which was hard because of his legs, he caressed her neck moving down to her collar bone. Her neck, what a perfect spot. The feeling of warm living flesh didn't go unnoticed, nor did the sensation of control. Kami was she beautiful, and fearful. He didn't remove his hand.

"Did you know that if the slightest drop of the same poison were to enter your system after the third injection the body instantly loses its motor skills?"

His right hand slipped down to her heart. He could feel it beating just like the one inside his own chest. It was like a connection between two living and partly living creatures. Both their heart beats quickened.

Inside all his non-human puppets were needle guns. He grabbed one needle with his left hand. A purple liquid slid down his wooden fingers and he smiled, not even hearing the breaks further added to his face. He brought the needle up to her neck and stared into her frighten mint colored eyes. They were so pretty with tear in them, it made them sparkle.

"Don't worry, within seconds you pass out as well."

He pricked her neck, just an inch deep. The poison worked fast, Sakura's eyes rolled back into her head, her body went stiff, then relaxed, and fell forward; her forehead landing softly onto his heart.

…

He had drifted into his work area, just as his flashback of their fight ended. Dazed he looked around the room. It wasn't very big, but it wasn't small either. As you walked in you were presented with what appeared to be a wide hallway. His small cot-like bed was pushed up against the left wall which was surrounded by unfinished non-human puppets, a small dresser, and table. On the right was his 'kitchen' containing a small refrigerator, his cabinets, long sink, and tiny stove. At the end of the hall were three doors. One lead to his bathroom, another to his old bedroom, and the third led to a series of other rooms that was used for training or as another work spaces, and housed his collection of human puppets.

Sasori began to set the girl down onto his bed, and then thought better of it. It smelled like _things_. He looked down at the girl in his arms. Where should he put this living girl? Thinking of a place in his domain that hadn't been used in a while, and that didn't smell too bad, he came to one conclusion. His old bedroom. Cringing at the thought, he set towards the door next to his stove. He hated his old room for two reasons. One was the fact that he'd used it while he was still living. Two was the fact that _she_ was in there.

Opening the door he was greeted by dust. A good foot of dust. It was small and had a twin size bed against the back of the room. There was a locked closet on the right next to a dresser. On the other side were a full length mirror and a rocking chair with one of his human puppets sitting in it. At the end of the bed was a chest that acted as a seat and after removing most of the dust he set Sakura down on it. Moving around the bed he lifted up the blanket, folding it so that he trapped all the dust in it, and threw it to the floor. Taking the pillow away from the bed Sasori shook it out, placing it back on the bed. Going back to Sakura he picked her up only to lay her on the ancient bed. It sagged in the middle from her weigh and for a moment Sasori was entertained with the thought that there was a woman in his bed.

"_Hmm_, I'm becoming such a pervert."

His smile faded, and in the next two hours he'd cleared a path through the dust as he boiled herbs, made ointments, poultices, and creams for the girl's wounds and tattered skin. Sasori was surprised to find that Sakura had healed her lungs, only leaving four small surface puncture wounds. This girl truly was amazing.

Finished for the moment he turned off the light, leaving Sakura's new room. He wasn't worried about her waking up anytime soon. It would be a good idea to finish his current project, he thought as he opened the middle door. Sasori walked down a narrow hall and reached a room with his scorpion symbol on it. When he walked in he was greeted with almost fifty mirror images of himself. Sasori walked over to the poor puppet that he'd used to fight Sakura with. He picked it up and put it on his work table. For some reason he didn't want to work on it, so he left to another room and strung up his other three broken puppets, he then took Hiruko back to the main part of his house and set him next to his cot. Sasori lay down unable to get the young girl off his mind.

In a few minutes the living puppet fell asleep with thoughts of Sakura and her warm body pressed against his…

_Yeah, for Asuma's revenge!! I'm not explaining those curse words, go look them up!! Why am I type yelling??Anyway, sorry for the lateness – blame my boyfriend. Next chapter will be fun. Ha! Bye till next time!!_


	8. Get better soon, girl

_Hello, and don't kill me for not updating in like what is it 4 or 5 months....heh, terribly sorry folks. A lot happened. School, Work, Car Accident, Family Feud, My Father Dying, you know that whole can of worms. Oh and I forgot to mention Christmas. Oh, I don't own any of Kishimoto-san's work, but it would make a great Christmas present! Well, Happy Holidays and here's a little present to all my readers: Update! Anyway, I hope you enjoy and I'm not sure I should do this because of the content of the chapter but, I'd like to dedicate this chapter to my father, Charles Harry LaBar, who past away October 30, 2008. _

_Chapter 7_

_Somewhere underground: Sixth Year of the Fifth Hokage _

Sakura was pissed off as she tried to move. Biting her lip from the painful lacerations on her back she thought twice about moving again. It seemed that her body didn't want to respond anyway. She'd been conscious and numb for what she thought was two hours, laying on a musty smelling bed in pitch darkness. During that time she had gnawed on every thought concerning the position she was in. Sakura determined she had been kidnapped by a puppeteer, a psychotic puppeteer who AMBU must have missed when they went on their annual search for rogue ninja. She mentally kicked herself for all the flaws she remembered in her first battle, which she could have won if only she'd gotten the last punch in first. On top of that Sakura felt weak and tired like she had just run around Konoha on her hands.

Looking up at the dark ceiling for the thirteenth time Sakura finally got fed up. Shaking off the worrisome thoughts she concentrated on gathering her chakra, finally being able to do so. The feeling was like a greeting with an old friend: welcoming. She could move, and found that sitting up took a lot of energy. It hurt to move her limbs but she managed assess her wounds. It was bad. She had a number of cuts and bruises that had started to show infection and judging from the pain in her side it seemed she had broken some bones. Her head hurt which meant she still might have a slight concussion. Slowly she brought her arm up and starting with her ribs began to heal the broken areas.

Starting on her last broken rib she heard it. Sakura's eyes shot to the door and watched as the handle started to move. She held her breath for a moment when it turned. Quickly laying back down Sakura closed her eyes and regulated her breathing. Sounds were her images now. In her mind she saw the door open. Bare feet walked upon the rock floor towards the bed and stop next to her on her right side. She had a mental image of an older man staring down at her. He had a slimy expression plastered on his wrinkled features. This she thought must be the image of the true puppeteer. Who else would want to control only beautiful puppets if they themselves weren't ugly?

"Hmph. That's not going to work, I heard you moving around in here earlier."

A picture of the cute puppet Sakura had fought flashed through her mind. Suddenly the room was flushed with light. Sakura's eyes open to see who or what this mysterious puppeteer looked like. As her eyes became focused she could see the outline of her kidnapper. Squinting, his face came into focus. What breathe that was in her seemed to be knocked out and was replaced with a cold ball of ice in her abdomen.

The somber expression of a killer madman stood over her. She felt her eyes widen, her pupils grow large in spite of the brightly lit room. Her mind froze. Standing over her was a replica of the same pretty-boy puppet, Sasori, which she'd smashed the back of her head into. Sakura's mind started to kick into action, think of ways to get her out of this new situation while keeping her eyes locked with the puppets.

His right hand reached out towards her, going for the gash on her left side. She stayed completely still her eye switching to watch his hand. He probably thought that she was still paralyzed from the poison. When his hand was just inches over her wound she moved. Sakura's left hand grabbed his pulling him towards her as Sakura brought her right hand and punched the puppet right in the center of his sectioned chest. The force of the punch sent his head forward as her fist sent him backwards. Sakura's other hand held onto his arm as she brought back her fist striking the puppet in his face. Sakura let Sasori's arm go as she smashed in his wooden cheek. Sasori was flung back by the force and landed at the end of the bed in a cloud of dust. She fearfully watched as he stood up, dusty and unfazed. It seems the poison did a good job at weakening her more than she thought.

"Sohe, ith appearhess that youh can moveh."

Sasori's hardened expression made her squirm as she tried to back away from him, however, she did so with a smile on her face for the way he now spoke. She had hoped to kill him with the first punch, the second was just frustration. Sakura's plan to take his arm off and possibly use it as a weapon had failed due to her lack of chakra and energy. Mentally she cursed her luck.

She felt the cold of the stone wall as she pressed her back to it. The Sasori-puppet was giving her an unexpected expression. She drew her legs into herself and prepared to attack. The puppet just kept smiling at her. Sakura was about ready to go after him head on and jump him when she felt why he was smiling. Weak, exhausted, poisoned, and low on chakra Sakura had missed the sensation of light fingertip touches on certain parts of her body. Her legs, arms, torso, and head were now connected with Sasori's right hand. The strings she couldn't see, but they were there and Sasori's smirk only grew when she looked towards him.

"Let me go!"

He laughed as Sakura tried to struggle, but Sasori kept his invisible hold on her. She felt the chakra creep into her veins and seep into her bones. The feeling made her skin crawl and it hurt as it pushed back her chakra. Sakura's feet began to move, standing on the bed she stood five inches taller than the maniac puppet. Time slowed as she walked towards Sasori, all she could do was glare at the puppet as she stepped down off the bed. She stood in front of him, Sasori's right arm still for the moment.

Sakura had noticed how he needed to move his fingers to make her walk to him. What she didn't understand was why her earlier plan hadn't worked. Sure she was weak but she'd punched him in the center of his chest, where his heart was. Wouldn't that have killed him or at least stalled the puppet? Wasn't it obvious that the heart controlled the puppets and that the real puppeteer controlled the heart? There was of course another option, which the puppets heart was the true puppeteer, but that couldn't be possible. Jutsu like that couldn't exist, not anymore.

Sakura felt her arm twitch and she looked up only to find Sasori inches from her face.

"Whateh theh matta?"

She watched as his expression turned dark again as she began to laugh.

"Verheh funnhe."

Sasori right hand came up to her face and for a moment she felt a ripple of fear. Instead she watched him bring his hand to his mouth and his wooden thumb was inserted. He never looked away from her as he pushed his wooden cheek back into place. The wood was splintered and the sharp edges that stuck out glistened with poison. Sakura swallowed the saliva in her mouth, her mind on the capsule of antidote tucked underneath her tongue.

"There, much better."

Speechless she stared at the puppet. Sakura watched his poison covered thumb come up to her; she tried to back away and found she couldn't. Just before he reached her face his hand veered, traveling down past her shirt. She glared at his smug face until his free hand brought something up in between them. There in his hand was a kunai attached to the end of a rope.

"My, my you've been rather quiet."

"Maybe its cause you're not worth talking to."

Sasori's expression tightened. Sakura watched his other hand come up and grasp the rope and with the chakra strings gone Sakura fell to her knees. Before she could get a chance to move, Sasori's chakra attach to her limbs. Sakura was pulled upward, her hands were bound, and her feet barely touched the floor as she was tied to the ceiling.

The room was spinning as she looked at the maniacal puppet. Sakura noticed that the gash on her side had opened up. The wound was a nasty red and purple color; puss and blood started to ooze out of the infected gash. Most of her other sores seemed to look the same. Looking up at Sasori she noticed him studying her wounds as well. It was eerie, and she felt as if he was mentally striping her. His eyes snapped to her and she wondered how something non-living could create such a soulful stare.

"I don't like to undress women while there sleeping or I would have healed these wounds last night. Now I'm regretting my decision."

"E-excuse me?"

He just smiled at her.

"Listen you son of a bit-"

It was that fingertip feeling only this time it felt different. Sakura looked down at her body, something was wrong with this feeling. It was her clothes. She watched as her skirt started to lift and wave as if there were a breeze. Then her shirt started to pull on her as if it wanted to get away from her skin. Sakura could see it then, her shirt and skirt were being pulled on by Sasori's chakra strings. It got to the point where both articles of clothing started to rip. Sakura's clothing pulled harder on her skin, further opening her wounds, the pain pushed her to a near blackout. Sakura outfit ripped at the seams, her eyes closed as tears started down her red cheeks.

"Another layer? Heh. Figures."

"Why you-"

The fishnet shirt she had on and her spandex shorts came next as Sakura screamed in pain. The threads of her under shirt dug into her worse than her shirt had. The underclothing came off faster and more painful leaving the kunoichi with more tears. Opening her eye to just slits she watched the puppet before her move around her. Looking down she could see the discarded pile of her soiled and ripped clothing. She felt his index finger on her side, it brushed against her gash and she sucked in a breath. The wooden digit traveled to her back lightly brushing the zigzag wound and stopping on her spine. Sakura's body was tense, she couldn't see him.

Sasori's finger traveled up to her bra strap. She heard the click and watched as her strapless red bra fell to the dusty floor. Suddenly things seemed to stop for Sakura. No longer did this feel like a regular kidnapping. Her body shivered as she once again felt Sasori's finger on her spine. It hurt when he passed over the infected skin. Sakura couldn't seem to think. The pain, numbness, and sickening feeling seemed to wipe out all of her energy.

Her body felt cold and paralyzed as Sasori's finger slid down, stopping at the hem of her red panties. He was standing to the right of her, his left arm slid around her back and she felt another finger just above the hem of her underwear. Sakura was stock still as his fingers slipped under the thin material. She felt the puppet laid his head on the right side of her shoulder, Sasori's hair slightly tickling her neck. When she felt his lips press to her skin is when she heard another click sound. Looking down she seen her underwear slid off her feet, the sides appeared to be cut.

Small sounds of laughter entered her ear as Sasori pressed what she could only guess was two small knifes into her thighs. Moving he came around her sliding his left index finger across her back. When he stood in front of her she looked for any trace of Sasori's knifes. If she could find one she could use it as a weapon. The idea was crushed, however, when he brought his hand up to show Sakura the tiny razors that protruded out of each index finger and with another click disappeared back into the puppets wooden flesh.

Sakura's situation started to feel hopeless; on top of that she was embarrassed strung up naked in front of this puppet pervert. She wanted to kick the smug bastard's grin. As she thought about pounding him in the ground Sakura noticed he'd turned his face away from her. It was just enough time to allow her to center what remaining chakra she had and kick herself and swing back to the bed. Sakura landed on the bench that was at the end of the bed and launched herself at Sasori. Unfortunately, the puppet had noticed her and moved out of the way. Her foot hit the door, doing little damage; she pushed off the door preparing to swing back at the puppet. Sasori had side stepped her as she tried to plow him under. Suddenly Sakura's body jerked to a stop, something had caught her foot. She was swung around her body still swinging as the kunai rope still secured her to the ceiling.

"Interesting, I seem to underestimate what you're capable of Sakura. For that I'll remember to be more careful around you. Now, now don't give me that face. I might just start to handle you better if you corporate."

Sakura couldn't talk, it seemed like her jaw had numbed shut. She stared at him, hating him. It was then that her eyes noticed Sasori pulling at his cloak. It came open and a long cable extruded from his abdomen like a slimy poison covered snake. She was shocked and frightened as it wrapped up around her, sliding along her wounds and further numbing her limbs. The cord slithered around her chest covering her exposed nipples. Her face turned red and she was about to curse him when the cable tightened around her sensitive skin, squeezing and causing her to cry out.

"Oh, sorry. But that's what you get for your little burst of energy. It's amazing how you managed the energy to not only bust my cheek, but my door as well."

Through slit eyes she looked up at him, tears striking the dirt on her face. She was to tired and numb to answer back to him. Sasori had that smug look on his face again, like he was thinking of something much bigger than holding her captive. It furthered her rage towards him.

"Heh. Glare at me all you like. You know, the poison I used this time is a special mixture I made just for you. It isn't as deadly as the one you had enter your system earlier, but I'm sure in a large dose it could kill. The amount in your system now will keep you sedated for quite some time."

His smile ate at her pride as she mentally cursed the puppet shinobi. Sakura watched his expression change once more. He now had a slight worried look. Sakura's eyes switched from his face to his hand and watched as the cable was retracted into his stomach. Voiceless she could do nothing but dangle from the ceiling and watch as he left the room. She'd used up all of her chakra. Her entire body was numb. The infectious wounds on her body were exhausting her and on top of that she was hungry.

Sasori had come back into the room; his hand contained one lid covered cup. Curious she looked towards him as he opened the jar. The smell of aloe, eucalyptus, jasmine, and lavender filled her senses. Setting the jar down the puppet turned back to her with a clear green paste that sat on the tips of his two fingers.

"Question: Can you move?"

"…"

"Since you're not able to respond I'll take that as a no. But just to make sure…"

Sakura flinched as his other hand stroked from her belly button up through her breasts along her neck and cupped her cheek. He was way too close for her liking as she gave him a death glare. Sasori just innocently smiled back at her.

"Good. My head probably would've been taken off if you were capable of moving."

'No probably about it' she thought. The paste felt good and she could just imagine the bacteria dying as the tingling sensation of the herbal paste started to work. The one problem was Sakura hated to emit that the slow way Sasori moved his hands over the cuts and gashes also caused her to tingle. The light pressure from his fingers and the cool paste made for an interesting feeling. One that heightened when he touched her chest and hips. Sakura face started to heat up, embarrassed at her thoughts and from the way her body was reacting to the inhuman doll.

When Sasori had finished Sakura looked almost green. She tingled all over and the lavender in the mixture was starting to put her to sleep. She watched the puppet with a blurred vision as he put the jar back on the table. Sakura was starting to feel light headed as she mindlessly stared into the glass eyes of her captor. He seemed so real.

"I made something else for you."

Sakura was afraid to find out as she tried at one last attempt to squirm out of the rope that held her. Sasori's face was indifferent as he pulled a small glass bottle out of his sleeve; on the front of it was a small clear heart. It was attached to a thick cord and had no lid. In his hand he poured what appeared to be black sand out of the container and the heart shaped indent started glowed blue. Her eyes widened as the sand started to move, as if it were alive. It wiggled around, suspended in air for a moment, then Sasori's fingers moved and the sand became a square, triangle, and finally dispersed back into the glass bottle making it lose its glow.

Sakura was amazed at what she'd just witnessed. She flinched, however, as Sasori tossed the cord up over her head. The bottle was heavy and uncomfortable as it sat in-between her breasts. Looking up at the puppet, she noticed he stood back from her and in a particular stance. His eyes were closed and she could barely hear what he whispered as he chanted something in a dead language. The bottle suddenly felt lighter, and she had a suspicion that Sasori had just preformed a very old jutsu on her.

When he was finished he came and slid his wooden hand underneath the bottle. Sakura noticed the pressure of his hand and snapped out of her sleepy state. His face was inches from her own and she was sure if he could breath she'd be able to feel it on her red face. His eyes were definitely a beautiful color. In fact looking at him up close she could tell who ever the real puppeteer was took great pride in creating this living doll. Sakura closed her eyes. What was she doing? This was her captor, her enemy.

"This bottle is filled with my special iron sand."

She opened her eyes to see his placid expression.

"If you do anything to harm yourself or you get into trouble this sand will protect you. The bottle will glow with your chakra when the sand is active."

Sakura sleepily looked down at the bottle in his hands, she watched as it glowed faintly and she could see the sand swirl around in the container. He let go of the bottle and the glow faded away.

"I'm afraid I must leave you now. Cut yourself down if you have the strength."

Angry and tired she watched him turn to go out and her eyes closed in slumber just as the door shut.

…

It was the pain in her arms and back that woke her. She could barely move her stiff neck as she looked up at her burred surroundings. Cold and hunger ate at her. Where was she? Looking down she saw her bare body. Then everything hit her at once. Sakura grit her teeth as she remembered all of what went on in the past, what she guessed, forty two hours. Her feet were touching the ground, which meant her limbs have been stretched out. Sighing she looked towards the kunai, slowly she moved her hand to reach for it. After cutting herself from the rope she looked at her damaged wrists; they were raw where the rope had been. Stiff, she clumsily got to her feet.

Sakura went straight for the jar of herbal paste and almost tripped in the process. It was worth it though when the cool green substance was applied her broken skin. She put more of the paste on what cuts she could reach. Judging from the way the old paste had crusted over she hadn't slept long. Wobbly she walked towards her tattered clothes trying to be as silent as possible. She didn't fell like putting the dried blood and dirt covered garments back on.

Depressed she made her way to the bed. The cover looked dusty and had splotches of crusty blood stains all over it, but it would have to do. Sakura cringed as she wrapped it around her, crusty side away from her skin. She turned to go to the door and noticed her reflection on the mirror that was in the room. Surprised, Sakura barley recognized the girl with green covered lacerations, dirty skin, mussed hair, and tear streaked face. She wanted to cry as the girl in the mirror started to shake.

It was then that her inner self took hold. She never acted like this! What was she some scared little girl playing the part in a bad horror story? Staring at the mirror Sakura's attitude changed as bit of energy and chakra returning to her.

"Time to act like what I really am."

Shinobi, particularly female shinobi weren't weak. That was her mantra as she went up and examined the door. A box on the floor told her that the door was a trap, if she were to just walk out it would set off an alarm that would tip her captor. Sakura smiled as remembered a trick to deactivate the box.

That's when she heard something move. Crouching, she pressed her ear to the door. No sound was had come from outside the door; which meant something was in the room. Slowly she turned her head and scanned the room. Some dust had slid off of a blanket covered chair; it appeared as if someone was sitting there. Cautiously Sakura moved towards it the kunai clutched in her hand. Inches away she grabbed the dim dusty cloth and pulled it back, prepared to strike.

Dust flew as Sakura held back a scream. In the chair sat a doll of an old woman with short grey hair. The puppet was dressed in a traditional Suna outfit and sat as if she'd just fallen asleep. Curiously she touched the old woman and felt the leathery wood of the dolls face. As soon as she withdrew her hand, however, the puppet fell forward. Lucky Sakura was quick enough to catch the doll before she crashed to the dust covered floor.

Sakura's body protested by reminding sores and stiff muscles she wasn't ready to hold something so heavy. She brought the puppet to the bed, laying it down. The crusty blanket started to slip off of Sakura's chest and she found herself staring at the clothing on the doll. Tempted she started to remove the old puppets outfit, exchanging it for her blanket. The woman was not a sight she wished to see, being that every detail was carved. What was strange was the puppet had the same type of cylinder that her captive had protruding from the dolls chest, right where the heart would be. There was also a faded symbol.

"Chiyo? I guess you must have been here a long time."

Paying her respects Sakura covered the doll completely with the blanket. Once again, she spied herself in the mirror. Still dirty, but she looked much better in the faded black outfit. It had a slit that ran up to her thigh and the white sash covered the low cut neckline. She cut the rope from the kunai to make a belt as walked back towards the door in the dolls worn sandals. In better spirits Sakura jammed the kunai into the trip box, securing that when she opened the door the alarm wouldn't sound. As she carefully walked out of the room she gave thanks to Naruto for teaching her the trick that once pranked the fourth Hokage.

The first thing Sakura did when she entered the hall was cover her nose. The smell made her eyes water. Looking to her left she noticed the small stove, over flowing with a fowl smelling liquid. Strange sounds came from the scratched up door across from her; she decided not to go into that one. There was a door right near the one she out of, but she got an odd feeling about going that way. She started to walk down the corridor, eyeing her surroundings with distaste. To her left was a bloody sink that smelled worse than what was cooking on the stove. To her right was a small cot surrounded by unfinished puppets and prosthetic parts. Quickening her pace she stopped just a few feet from what appeared to be the entry way. A mosaic of rocks trimmed the exit; small symbols were etched on each piece of rock.

Hope returned to Sakura at the sight of her village's beloved leaf symbol. Another loud bang and her choice had been made. She walked into the darkness of a tunnel, stepping lightly and trying to see where she was going. Darkness surrounded her as she tripped on something and felt to the ground. Hitting her still sore hands made her cry out in pain and she quickly sat up. With her hands to her chest Sakura got up and moved along determined not to stop.

This sicko wasn't about to make her his next victim without a fight to the very end.

Her ears seemed to be extra sensitive to sound in the pitch blackness of the cave and it was with that thought that she heard it. Small sounds like pieces of wood clanking on stone; and she knew he was coming for her. Her slow walk turned into a run, and she had to use some of her chakra to help her eyes see in the dark. She took corridor after corridor, randomly choosing her next path till her foot sank into the floor. Before Sakura could stop a shower of arrows came at her, she dodged left to right only to run into a string of swing axes. Like a dancer she gracefully maneuvered the blades running past them when a glitter on the floor in front of her and cloud of green fog steamed from pipes either side of her. Sakura kept running and jumped over whatever that shine was on the floor while escaping the poisonous fog.

Moving forward she seen a faint glowing and ran towards it, sliding to a stop in front of the glowing green letters.

"Dead End?"

"Heh, More or less."

Startled she turned around fast, the slit in her dress reveling a little more of her leg and thigh than she might have wished. Sakura was stunned for a moment as she peered upon the puppets face. The green glow of the paint made his hair pop and his eyes and skin shine from the lacquer. Beautiful was to less a word for this God that stood before her.

"I must say I'm impressed you made it this far. Konoha is truly starting to be revived, and its new generation of shinobi certainly has promise. Too bad you made it through all the traps except for the most important one: Me."

He gave her a cocky smirk and she got into a stance. Sasori was going down and she was going to enjoy pounding that pretty face into the ground. But just as she was going to charge him, his face changed.

"I wouldn't do that if I were you."

Ignoring him she started her charge only to freeze in mid-step. Sakura faltered for a moment with one foot stuck to the ground and the other in the air. It was her mistake to let her foot touch the sandy ground. She new why the floor felt the way it did, it was sand but as she inspected it closer she seen its color. Black, it was black sand and it was climbing up her legs. Then she watched in a state of wonder and horror as the glass bottle glowed a light blue and black sand emerged from its prison. It spread all over her covering her mouth and locking her arms to her body.

Once again she was in a position where she could only glare at the demonic puppet. With her eyes fixed upon him she watched as he brought his hand up, fingers outstretched, still smiling at her, and slowly closed his hand into a fist; as he did this she slowly moved forward, toward him. By the time his hand was closed she was just inches from his slanted eyes, delicate nose, and glossy lips. Sakura felt an urge to touch his soft looking hair or trace the green glow that shown on his face. For some reason being this close to the puppet pervert was turning her mind into a ball of mush. She was starting to think like Naruto!!!

"You know I said this sand will protect you, however, it also protects _me_ as well."

Sakura just gave him a hard glare, all thoughts of passion gone from her with his words.

"Well it seems I'll need to poison you again, I must admit as fun as it is chasing you around _Sakura. _However, I am getting tired of you hurting yourself."

She was confused and even more so when the sand over her lips moved away. Just as she was going to tell him to stick it, he moved up towards her. Sasori was too fast and she realized that the sand kept her from moving her head backwards. It wasn't a real kiss, at least which is what she told herself as she felt the poisoned needle stick into her lower lip. But it was an experience she wasn't expecting. His lips were leathery and aside from the poison, he didn't taste that bad.

Blood started to drip down her chin as she watched his open mouth close upon the bloody needle. He smiled at her and her eyes widened as a small sectioned pink and poisoned covered tongue slid across his lips, licking away the reminisce of her blood. Awed and a little grossed by the sight she remembered she'd been poisoned by the very same delicious mouth.

Standing locked in the puppets iron sand embrace seemed to fuel the poison. Faintly she blamed it on his chakra. Sleeper than she was before Sakura watched him till her head fell, the sand giving way slightly. She used the opportunity to bit the capsule of antidote that was in her mouth, with the comfort that her hair hid the chewing motion of her jaw. Just as she swallowed the rest of the pill she looked up one last time. Sasori was still smiling down at her.

"Oh, and by the way, nice outfit…"

Then everything went black.

…

Someone was touching her and she didn't like it. She felt hot and a pressure on her stomach. It was a dream she told herself. After all she reasoned with herself, she did have those _types_ of dreams. No, this one seemed too real, she fought back. Then an image of a handsome boy with glowing red eyes and wooden skin pulled her out of her dream an into a nightmare.

Wide awake Sakura had sat up, only to come face to face with the man in her nightmare. Distracted for the moment she hadn't noticed their position, or his horrified expression which was somehow gaining a blush like color. Recognizing the situation as something majorly wrong, inner Sakura kicked in as the red faced girl went to swing her hardest most bone or wood breaking punch known to man or puppet.

But just as she was going to make wood contact she hear a bone chilling crunch as her fist slammed unprotected by chakra into a small wall of iron sand that protected Sasori's right cheek. Tears formed in her eyes as the pain sank in. Sitting up fully she held her damaged hand to her chest completely forgetting about the man-puppet-thing stratling her. That was till his and picked up her broken one and brought it to his mouth, and in a most odd gentlemanly like manor kissed the top of her bloody knuckles. Unsettled by his change in behavior she tried to pull her hand away.

"Let go!"

Her voice sounded so horse, she thought.

"Now, now. Don't you see my dear Sakura, I can be gentle."

Sakura tried to struggle out of his hold.

"Then again, if you're going to insist on getting you self into trouble…"

Sasori let go of her hand only to grab her shoulders, she felt his body press her down into the bed, which she recognized to be in the same room she escaped from earlier. His powerful skin like wooden arms firmly held her in palace as he towered over her, a wicked expression plastered to his lips. She felt one helpless second before she brought her knee up and kicked him right in the groin with not nearly enough force as she had hoped. Then that helpless second grew as she realized she had no chakra. It wasn't just Sasori's chakra the iron sand feed off of, but her own as well to keep her out of trouble.

"That isn't going to work again; you see I've _equipped_ myself better this time around."

Sakura stared horrified into the round glass eyes that seemed to grow from a beautiful pink-grey color into a dark red-black. It could have been the lighting in the room but the way his hands moved over her, feeling her, she had to block his stare out. Sasori's hands traveled over her breasts, up her sides and down to her belly button, only to return back up to her chest. She shivered between fear and delight as odd and dangerous new sensations were awoken in her. Then his hands had moved further downward to the tip of the slit in her dress.

"No…"

His thumb pressed the inner part of her thigh and her breathing began to stop.

"Stop…"

The tips of his fingers barely brushed the one side of her when she felt the first slight jolt of something far beyond her understanding.

"STOP IT NOW! IS THIS HOW YOU WERE BROUGHT UP! WHAT WOULD YOUR PARENTS SAY?"

"Parents?"

Her eyes were tight shut as tears streamed down her face. Only after a few seconds of silence did her eyes open in slits to peer at Sasori. The light color had returned, along with a confused expression. His face turned to discussed when he looked at her. Releasing her from its grip, and probably leaving bruises, he got up off her grumbling a small "whatever" and headed towards the door.

Upset, shocked, and confused she sat stock still as he opened the door to the room slightly. Sasori then turned around with his face and eyes darkened by his hair.

"Get better soon, girl."

He left, locking the door with a small click. Still in shock Sakura sat lost in thought for what seemed like hours, but happened to be only minutes. Then it all hit her.

"He was going too…."

Lying flat on the bed with her face beat read she over viewed what had occurred between her and the living puppet named Sasori. He kissed her, fondled her, groped her, and tried to sexually assault her. So why was she acting like the way she did around Sasuke with Sasori? Did she actually, might have some sort of an affiliation with the insane puppeteer?

"No way, he kidnapped me and tried t-to….ugh. Who knows what'll happen next with that guy."

Sakura looked around the room. She was definitely in the same one as before.

"I've got to get out of here…"

A noise came from the corner followed by a voice, a voice that wasn't Sakura's.

"Well then, maybe I can help you."

_It is soooooo long and not nearly as satisfying as you all were expecting. Two more chapters, kay! Till next time, Mushi over and out of her mind! ;P Happy Holidays!_


	9. All you need is your mother’s love

_Yay, update! Now a few things I'd like to explain: I've made some changes to Sasukgay's wardrobe only because I hate the butt-bow he wares in Shippunden. So_ :-) _I'm sorry for not explaining that Sasuke is wearing Shippunden style clothing (with my own alterations). Oh, and I will please most of the sexually deprived readers out there because I've been drinking wine and needed a good dream, so warning this chapter gets lemony fast. This part of the story is going to start off at the end of chapter 6, Okay! Kishimoto-san owns Naruto, but I can dream can't I? Enjoy…_

_Chapter 8_

_Sasori's Lair – Somewhere underground: Sixth Year of the Fifth Hokage _

When he woke up Sasori looked up from the floor at the clock that hung beside his bed, and was shocked. The little battery powered clock read one am. He'd fallen asleep around five pm the other day. Never, not since he was human, had he slept for eight hours straight. Going over the math again he realized it was true. But that wasn't the only thing that had, as it appeared literally, offset the puppet master. It seemed he'd experienced the R.E.M. state of sleep; a state in which a person began to dream, and what a dream it was…

…

_Sasori had entered his old room and picked up Sakura, she was in perfect condition at last! He laid her on his bed outside in the hall. Staring down at her soft face he traced from her cheek to her neckline. As if in a trance he'd completely forgotten about turning her into a puppet. Instead, he watched as his hand slowly unzipped her blouse. He seemed not able to control his hands as they spread open the garment, and there for his eyes to see, were two perfect mounds of flesh. _

_Sasori found that he salivating as the site of Sakura's exposed breasts. His heart seemed to beat too fast for some reason, but when he went to touch the cylinder in the middle of his chest his hand only felt skin. Real skin, not a leathery texture or a grainy wood surface! Standing up, he removed all of his clothing and his eyes widened. He was human! How could he be human? _

_Sunned and not receiving an answer from anyone he turned his attention back to the girl on his bed. Sakura was lying in an odd position – her legs were spread, her chest was protruding, and she appeared to be breathing hard. A moan of his name drifted to his ears and his heart pumped most of his blood to two points in his body. Some went to his face, the rest went south._

_The now human Sasori found himself with a rather large and growing problem. He began to shake as Sakura's body began to beg him. Her hips lifted up and down asking for him as a slow whisper passed through her lips about how she needed him. Breathless at the sight Sasori sat down next to the aroused girl. He'd never done such a thing with a female before, but he found as he drew her skirt, shorts, and panties down her silky legs, he was learning. _

_Letting out a low sigh, Sasorislowly brought his left hand up her right leg. He felt her shiver at his touch. Just as he got to her hip joint he watched as she gave a small jerk forward. Making a bold movehe bent down and kissed just above her belly button. When he looked up his eyes met the fiery mint-green of the now awake kunoichi. He lifted his head, her eyes following his every movement. Sasori was upset; he didn't want what she'd started to end. But as he went to grab something he could use to fight with Sakura jumped at him. Pinned, he waited for her to finish off his venerable body._

_What he hadn't expected was for the girl to run her lips along his chest, sliding her tongue along his sensitive nipples, and return to his face for one of the most passionate French kiss he'd ever had. Sakura's legs straddled his as Sasori held her to him. As he deepened the kiss even more Sasori could feel his erection pushing up against Sakura's wet entrance. The sensation was driving him crazy as he tried to feel every part of the pink haired beauty. _

_Then she pulled away from him with lust in her eyes, and Sasori found that he enjoyed not being a virgin. At first he let her do most of the work as she slid up and down upon him. Her hands were on either side supporting her weight giving him a wonderful view of her bouncing breasts. Feeling light headed Sasori began to add to their little workout. He shot his hips up into Sakura's making her arch away from him. Again, he did this and she came for him with a howling moan of pleasure._

_With fire in his own eyes Sasori flipped their position and…_

…

He had to pick himself up off the carpet. Shaking off the dream seemed to present a problem for the hitokugutsu. Sasori found himself with a problem he had no idea how to solve. His human heart was telling him he had an erection and the problem with that was he didn't have any parts on his puppet body that could get rid of the erect feeling. He considered for a moment about stroking the poison covered cable that he kept coiled in his stomach. It would be easy to redirect the chakra causing his problem to it, but what kind of will power would he have if he just ignored the whole feeling?

Deciding that it wasn't worth his time to pleasure himself, Sasori skipped his morning check up and ended up just starting his work. He took Hiruko in to the back and strung him up with the rest of his non-human puppets. As he began to work on the puppet the dream started to creep into his mind. Sasori found that Hiruko reminded him of his battle with Sakura, which made him remember the wet dream he'd had. So he left the room determined to start work on another puppet, but he found that Hinshu, Oroka, and Senyroku also reminded him of the dream. Even the broken and busted puppet of him found itself unattended too.

Frustration slowly seeped into Sasori as he exited the middle door. Looking to his left, he was tempted to check on the girl. But the feeling in his gut slammed that thought out of his head. No, it wouldn't be good to go into that room. He had to find something to take his mind off of his future Sakura-guujin. Sasori looked to his right.

"That's right; I still have to finish that boy I started."

With his mind made up Sasori walked into his bathroom. Strung up over his tub and only half finished was the head, torso, and arms of the boy named Sasuke he'd found rotting in his corridors. None of the joints were connected; that took a bit of force to put together so it was saved as the last part of the process. Sasuke's lower body parts were scattered on his work desk. Sasori did most of the messy work in his bathroom so it smelled the worst and though he tried to keep it clean, ended up being the most disgusting room in his home.

He'd gotten much of the boy finished, but he'd been so preoccupied with Sakura that he completely forgotten to finish the boy. He still had to make the epoxy for the boy's hair, which would keep it from decay and ensure the hair stayed in place. Returning to his kitchen-hallway-bedroom or for short his living room, Sasori picked up the pot he used for Sasuke's tanning agent and dumped the liquid down the drain. Rinsing it out, he filled it with water and set it back down on the burner. He measured out a small amount of talc, silica, powdered starch, glue, and birch sap. Mixing everything together in the pot he turned it on and went back to his project at hand.

Opening the middle door he walked down to a room with a small symbol of a paint brush. Walking in Sasori filled a box he found full of blue, white, and red fabric, paints and brushes, needles and thread, and a set of grey-pink and red eyes. As he came out of the room he glanced at his clock: three am. Truly this morning was taking forever.

Entering his bathroom set the box down and unfolded the spare table. Lying all of the objects in orderly piles on the table he picked up the black paint bottle and one of the red eyes. On each eye he painted three dots that looked like commas. Setting them down to dry he picked up the blue fabric. As he recalled the boy had been wearing blue pants and a simple white gi tied with a purple sash. 'It's simple enough to make.' He thought as he lifted his cloak. Sasori opened a small cavity in his side allowing his chakra strings to attach onto the needles he'd prepared and started to make the garments.

With the boy's clothing finished he strung up the rest of the boy's body parts. As his chakra sewed the fabric together he was busy fiddling with the mechanics of the puppets face. Nothing was ready to be put together, not till the hair was finished. Looking down at the boy's face he delicately sewed in small strands of black hair for the boy's eyebrows. He'd just strung the head back up with the rest of the puppet when he heard a small sound beyond his bathroom. Quietly he walked out, his clock read six am, and he strode over Sakura's bedroom.

Pressing his ear to the door, the sound indicators in his ears told him that she was awake and moving. Sasori backed away from the door confused. Should he enter or stay? He looked down at the simmering pot. It would be better if he finished Sasuke's hair. With that decided he went back to his bathroom caring the pot.

Sasori had to style the boy's hair by hand, getting the fast drying epoxy all over his wooden hands. Not being able to burn one's skin was rather handy. However, the only downfall was that the epoxy tended to harden instantly. So even though he'd gotten the puppet near completion, he now had to change out his hands. Leaving the bathroom he set the pot back down on the burner and filled it with more water, the epoxy would have to be burnt out of the container.

Once again Sasori found himself in the room filled with his puppet clones. Concentrating chakra on his heart Sasori felt the cylinder slip out of the epoxy covered puppet and into an identical copy. While the face and body were similar in design he'd made sure to use this puppet for his next encounter with Sakura. It had his heart container in the left side of his chest instead of the center, it and it was coated with a special resin that made it near shatter proof. He was sure though that his little kunoichi was going to do something to shatter his shatter proof puppet. But before leaving the room he made sure to secure a metal plate over his groin after remembering what she'd done to his other puppet.

Donned in his usual Suna outfit Sasori waited just outside of her door, he listenedfor movement. Sure enough he could hear her regular breathing and small creaks coming from the ancient bed. Reaching for the handle he slowly opened the door. A crack of light illuminated the dark silhouette of his captive the more he pushed the door open. By closing the door he shrouded the both of them in darkness. He crept towards her managing his way through the dark till he was right besides her. Her breath was controlled and he was sure that her eyes were tightly shut.

"Hmph. That's not going to work, I heard you moving around in here earlier."

Smiling he listened as she drew in a quick breath startled, as he made the hand signals for his small fire jutsu. Suddenly the room was filled with light as all of the candles lit at once. The jutsu was a rather handy trick.

The girls eyes opened and his smile turned somber. As she focused her attention onto him the breath she drew earlier was released. Sakura seemed to be frozen in place. As Sasori looked at the rest of her body he noticed the new state of her condition. Most of her busies were almost gone. So she'd healed herself? He could've smiled at the thought, however, right below Sakura's ribs was an ominous looking gash. He'd figured by this point in time the poison in her system was completely gone, but the girl appeared to still be in some shock. Taking a risk, Sasori went to touch the gash on her left side. It appeared to be the most infected so he wanted to check the wound, and it was probably causing her serious pain.

Just as he brought his hand over her stomach Sakura grabbed him. Sasori's eyes shot to her face as she pulled him towards her. Inches from her face and looking directly in her eyes, Sasori found himself being pushed backwards from the force of her fist on his chest. For that one moment he was glad he'd switched bodies. Sakura still held onto his hand and like a yo-yo Sasori was jerked back towards her. She was in a sitting position he noticed as her fist connected to his left cheek. Sasori heard the cracking of wood as he was let go only to careen backwards and off the bed to land in the pile of dust on the floor.

It only took him a moment to recover and stand up from the cloud of dust. Patting the dust from him, Sasori glared at the young kunoichi as she just sat there fearfully staring at him. There was a slight pain in his cheek.

"Sohe, ith appearhess that youh can moveh."

At the sound of his voice his face darkened. With his tongue he gently probed his mouth. It appeared that she'd knocked most of his cheek into his mouth causing him to speak oddly. Sasori watched as the girl slowly backed away from him with a smile on her face. Did she really enjoy making a fool out of him? But he watched as her back hit the wall and he seen how the reality of the situation was starting to effect her, well now he couldn't help but smile.

She was weak and afraid to which Sasori made the most of this opportunity. Slowly with his right hand he connected five chakra strings to her limbs, and torso. Just as Sakura was ready to come at him again Sasori made her stop. Watching her expression was the best as it donned on the poor girl that she'd just become his 'puppet' and his smile only widened as she realized this.

"Let me go!"

"Hee, he." Did she think him stupid as well?

Sasori moved his fingers that were covered by his sleeve and watched as Sakura got to her feet. He noted how she tried to struggle, her body jerking in her fight to escape his chakra strings. Her slow walk towards him brought his mind back to his dream and as she stepped down from his bed he started to get another erect feeling from his heart. Sasori was staring intently at her, but the girl's mind seemed to be off somewhere, so he twitched her arm to get her attention.

"Whateh theh matta?"

Sasori watched as she averted her eyes and her body began to shake with laughter. Giggles bubbled up to his ears and the slight concern for her he'd had went out the door.

"Verheh funnhe."

Her laughter subsided as he brought his hand up. By now they were just a breath apart with his eyes staring hers down. Sasori put his thumb in his mouth, and with slight difficulty pushed the broken wood back into place. The poison that salivated his mouth swirled around as he made sure he'd be able to talk properly. He never broke eye contact with her, but he did wonder how he must have looked. Not to pretty he judged by the way the girl looked at him.

"There, much better."

Sasori's poison covered thumb was held to his lips. When he brought it to Sakura's own lips she froze, but he didn't touch her, not even when his thumb travel down the girl's front. While she was stunned Sasori used the opportunity to grab the kunai rope he hid in his cloak. His eyes were slant and his expression smug as he brought the rope in between them.

"My, my you've been rather quiet."

"Maybe its cause you're not worth talking to."

Did no one teach this girl any manners? Mad, Sasori brought his right hand up and released his hold on her. With and emotionless face he watched as she fell to the floor, and attached his chakra strings to her once again. Sasori hulled her up with force as he stretched Sakura's arms up and tied them together. With his other hand he controlled the rope and had it tie the girl to his ceiling. Done he pulled back his chakra and stepped back.

The young kunoichi swayed back and forth with her head bowed. Sasori's anger gradually deflated as he noticed the state of the girl's condition. While he figured that she'd healed most of her big wounds he forgot about the small to mildly severe ones. He looked over her body and he was becoming increasingly worried.

But, how could he have let her move so much? Sasori looked at the gash he'd first gone to touch. From his non-medical view he knew it was bad, not only had the wound shown signs of infection but it appeared to have spread since the other day. He had to treat this problem right away if Sasori was going to save the girl.

"I don't like to undress women while there sleeping or I would have healed these wounds last night. Now I'm regretting my decision."

"E-excuse me?"

Sasori felt his skin stretch into a smile at her accusation.

"Listen you son of a bit-"

As Sasori attached his chakra string to the girl once again he came to the conclusion that his young kunoichi did in fact have no manners. So it was only her fault that he had to show her a lesson. It was easy to control non-inanimate objects like clothing and it was just so much fun to rip them off of someone. It wouldn't cause any real damage to her body, but it would provide a very painful experience. When he ripped her shirt and skirt off his pulse spiked; the whole experience was a thrill he never expected.

"Another layer? Heh. Figures."

"Why you-"

Sasori was enjoying the little game of mockery he had with his cherry blossom. But as he pulled on her under shirt and shorts, and he heard her cry out in pain, something in Sasori's heart jumped. For just a second he looked at the girl with his hands down at his sides. She was radiant. Radiant in nothing but two very small _red _garments. Red had always been his favorite color and here she was wearing underneath all her faded and pale clothes: bright fire red underwear. Sasori found in that small moment that the urge to touch his dear Sakura was overcoming.

Slowly he walked around her, so that he stood by her side and took in the sight of her. Hesitantly, he touched the gash on her side and she flinched away from him. But he was being surprisingly gentle and let his finger rest against her flesh as he slid it along her wound, to her back. There his finger trailed the inch deep zigzag opening. Sasori felt Sakura tense as his finger stopped its path at the middle of her spine.

'The red cloth matched the color of her blood so well', he thought as he slid his finger up to the small fastener and with a small click he watched the garment fall from her back. Sasori felt her shiver as he brought his finger zigzagged the gash down her spine and slid his right hand along the top of her panties to her right hip. Now he was standing on her right side as he slipped his fingers into the sides of Sakura's silky underwear. The excitement was building in him as he nuzzled his head in the crook of her neck. As she tensed Sasori kissed the side of her neck and the thin razors in his index fingers cut the thin garment in two.

He began to laugh as strange sort of triumph over the girl entered his mind. Sasori walked around her, gently dragging his left hand with the razor still out along her back. When he stood before her and looked into her hopeful eyes, he felt the triumph swell again. Sasori brought his hands up in front of her to show a razor out of each index finger only to have them disappear back into his fingertips. But as he heard the ten clicks signaling that the small knives were back into his fingers, he heard another click.

Turning his attention away from Sakura for a moment Sasori turned and looked towards the other puppet that was in the room. Narrowing his eyes at the covered chair his attention quickly returned to his captive. He sensed that she'd moved rather rapidly. Ducking out of the way Sasori watched as the pink haired girl slammed her foot into his door creating a large dent. She'd pushed off the door and was going to slam into him when Sasori side stepped her. Opening his cloak and attaching his chakra strings to his cord, Sasori grabbed onto the girls foot and steadied her as she swung from the ceiling.

"Interesting, I seem to underestimate what you're capable of Sakura. For that I'll remember to be more careful around you. Now, now don't give me that face. I might just start to handle you better if you corporate."

The girl was giving him death glares from her hanging position, but that changed when she found out something was slithering up her body. Sasori smile at the shock that was on her face at the sight of his cord. It was one of his favorite (and kinky) gadgets on most of his copy puppets. The cord was soaked in poison, had a sharp point at the end, and was made of incredibly strong steel.

But the mechanics of the cord wasn't what made his eyes widen. It was the sight of it sliding up Sakura's legs and across her stomach. He drew in a breath as the cord glided over the girls breasts, and stretched along her hardened nipples. Sasori looked towards the girls face then, just as she was about to open her mouth and ruin his moment. But he reminded himself, he had to remember what she was going to become. Just as Sakura was going to scream at him he closed his hand into a fist and the cord squeezed around her, injecting poison into her open wounds and causing the kunoichi terrible pain.

"Oh, sorry. But that's what you get for your little burst of energy. It's amazing how you managed the energy to not only bust my cheek, but my door as well."

The aura he received from her was invigorating. How she managed the strength to stay conscious impressed the puppet-master to no end. Looking upon her beaten, tired form he could see the start of a new generation in her. Yes, he'd found his perfect doll.

"Heh. Glare at me all you like. You know, the poison I used this time is a special mixture I made just for you. It isn't as deadly as the one you had enter your system earlier, but I'm sure in a large dose it could kill. The amount in your system now will keep you sedated for quite some time."

Sasori felt was having too much fun now and he'd gotten completely sidetracked. Frustrated by his earlier actions he left the room closing the door firmly behind him. Walking over towards his sink he opened the cabinets and cupboards that were above it. Placing a cup upon the counter he poured in honey and some water. Spreading out various jars he picked from them: clover, aloe, eucalyptus, sage, jasmine, garlic, and lavender. Crushing and mixing the ingredients together he took down a green candle from the wall and a bit of it to the puce. Sasori quickly mixed it into a greenish paste and scooped it into a jar.

With the lid on he entered back into the room. Sasori watched as Sakura looked up at him, her curious stare following his movements. He opened the jar and out of the corner of his eye seen the girl relax just a bit. Dipping two fingers into the mixture he realized that it did smell quite strong. Sasori set the jar down and stood in front of the girl. Sakura was breathing hard, which made her body shake and sway. Once again Sasori felt his heart skip a beat at the sight of her.

"Question: Can you move?"

"…"

"Since you're not able to respond I'll take that as a no. But just to make sure…"

With his non-paste covered hand, he brushed the tips of his fingers to her bellybutton and slowly stroked upwards between her breasts and neck to cup her cheek. He shouldn't have done it, but he'd taken worse risks in life. Sasori then leaned in, with his natural angelic smile plastered onto his beautiful face and took her glare head on.

"Good. My head probably would've been taken off if you were capable of moving."

Sasori mentally sighed but he couldn't figure if it was for relief or disappointment. However, the thought left his mind as he started to apply the paste on the girl skin. It had been such a long time since he'd touched someone with the only intention of helping them. But that wasn't the real thought that plagued the hitokugutsu. Healing someone required that the healer get up close and personal with their patient.

The wooden flesh of his hands couldn't feel her skin, but it was still interesting to watch the girl's reactions as he'd dip to low here or rub to light there. It was enough to make him hard, excuse the pun. Worst of all was that the girl – minus the blush - was enjoying the sensations he caused her. Sasori had finished putting a glob of paste on the side of her hip when he realized he didn't want to let go. Had his primal human feeling come back to him? Disgusted at the thought Sasori pulled his hand away from the young kunoichi.

Looking down at the jar in his hand Sasori realized he'd used up a great deal of the herbal mixture. He looked up at the girl. With foggy eyes she stared at him. Had he really wanted to touch this girl that badly that he'd forgotten about his main objective? After all, how could a simple little girl make him feel so human after three hundred years when nothing else had?

"I made something else for you."

He had to get his mind off of that subject and back on track. From his sleeve he pulled out a simple clear glass bottle with a small clear heart on it. There was a bottle just like this one on every one of his puppets, whether the puppet was once living or not. Opening his hand he poured a bit of the black sand out in front of the girl's widened eyes. Using his chakra Sasori made it take shapes and then disperse back into the bottle. Taking the bottle by its thick cord he threw it over Sakura's head. The bottle rested in between her breasts as he silently began the jutsu that would attach Sakura's chakra to his.

"Enko kokoro no jutsu."

Finished with his jutsu Sasori walked up to the sleepy woman that hung from his ceiling. A woman, how could he have ever thought of her as a girl? Picking up the bottle and resting his hand on her chest the puppet-master looked right into Sakura's eyes. He felt her stare start to become hypnotic. Sasori felt himself lean into her, his face coming closer and closer, his lips just inches from hers when Sakura closed her eyes.

The spell was broken, the moment ruined once again. What was he doing anyway? He only kissed women to trap them, not to enjoy it. What was he thinking and why was he so frustrated about it?

"This bottle is filled with my special iron sand."

Her mint-green eyes opened up at him.

"If you do anything to harm yourself or you get into trouble this sand will protect you. The bottle will glow with your chakrawhen the sand is active."

Sasori watched her as she peered down at the bottle he let go of. It glowed with their chakra.

"I'm afraid I must leave you now. Cut yourself down if you have the strength."

Sasori left the room just as her chakra calmed in sleep. He sighed aloud and wondered why he was going so soft on this woman. Looking around his kitchen Sasori picked up the boiling remains of the epoxy and dumped the liquid in the small bucket underneath his sink. Refilling the pot, he poured soap and some rather foul smelling oils into the pot and set it on to boil. It would make his living room smell like something died but it would clean out his pot for its next usage.

Walking through his middle door Sasori went straight to his copy room. Looking around the room he picked out another look alike and traded bodies. But before he left remembered his groin guard. Exiting into his living room Sasori went into his bathroom. It seemed that work was just piling up for him all because he kept underestimating his mattaki-ningyou.

Once again his fist was balled up and pressed against his eye, something he only did when annoyed. Sakura was going to make him even crazier than he already was. Bringing his fist to his side Sasori looked at the copy in the mirror and mentally asked his mirror-image what he should do? The puppet said and did nothing besides shook its clenched fist. Turning his face away from his image Sasori gazed upon his work.

"Now would be a good time to finish you, my friend. I am after all, in the mood to give something a good beating."

…

Two hours had passed as he gently knocked and pounded each of the boy's parts and pieces together. Twice he'd messed up because of his thoughts. What was it that girl did to him that made his heart act so human? Why did he have such a vivid dream? Why should he care?

Just then he knocked Sasuke's foot on backwards.

"Chikusho! Shimatta! Nande kuso? Ugh!"

He had to do something about this problem. Sasori always had a problem with patience but that wasn't the cause this time. Going over all of what he knew the kugutsu-tatsujincame to one conclusion: his heart was trying to turn a non-human body human. All of the fantasy, feelings, and urges he felt towards his captive must have been a pent up primal desire that his human body never got to fulfill.

But the conclusion only told him what the problem was but not how to get rid of it. Sasori looked down at his wooden body. When alive he'd only done that _deed_ a hand full of times, and then he'd been human. Dare he try to please himself in his wooden body? Like his thoughts earlier, it would be simple enough to do. But didn't he become a puppet to get away from all that in the first place? There was one other choice, but he vowed he'd never use that body again.

"Kami, what's a hitokugutsu to do?"

Just as he was about to get back to work a small Sasori heard a scream. It was only muffled by one door and it had an echo. Either someone made it very close to his home or his little kunoichi escaped.

Storming out into his living room he noticed the door to his room wide open. Cautiously entering Sasori spotted something under the covers on the bed. Slowly walking towards it he attached his chakra strings to the blanket covering what appeared to be a body, and pulled the material off. Sasori shut his eyes at the naked hitokugutsu of his grandmother. Wrapping the old puppet up in the blanket he set the doll back on the old chair. Completely covered he left doll and the room. To think he'd only been in the room an hour ago to replace the door.

Sasori ran out of his living room and into the dark tunnel of his labyrinth. He couldn't hear her and seeing anything was out of the question. 'It was a good thing he gave her that bottle', he thought as he prepared for a location jutsu.

"Basho no jutsu."

With his eyes closed Sasori could see the trail that Sakura had left. It looked like a little red string and all he'd have to do was follow it to her. As he ran the familiar paths of his corridors he tried to figure out how the girl escaped his room. Wouldn't the sensor have tipped him? Sasori had to emit that the thing was old and could have been easily tampered with. He wasn't worried about her safety; his iron sand took care of that. What puzzled him was the fact that she'd made it this far from his home. They were almost a good half a mile away.

He had caught up with her. Sasori realized she was going down a hall with many traps. Sliding to a stop at the entrance he watched in fascination as she dodged everything that was flung or thrown at her.

"Yusou no jutsu."

Sasori loved that jutsu. Looking at the girl she'd stopped just in front of the wall where he had written with florescent green paint:

"Dead End?"

"Heh, More or less."

He watched as she turned around. The outfit she wore stunning him into silence. It was an age-old dress reserved for the women of his village. Although he liked the little alterations she'd made. The light glow of green on Sakura's upper leg made his mouth water. Only when he stepped towards her did he snap out of his perverted thoughts.

"I must say I'm impressed you made it this far. Konoha is truly starting to be revived, and its new generation of shinobi certainly has promise. Too bad you made it through all the traps except for the most important one: Me."

The smile on his face faded as he watched her take a stance. Was she going to attack him again?

"I wouldn't do that if I were you."

Sasori could only watch as she tried to charge him. The chakra he charged the iron sand with stopped her from moving another step. This in turn triggered the iron sand that was in the bottle on her breast. Slowly the black sand curled its way around Sakura and Sasori just stood and watched as it tied her up.

Sakura glared at him as he brought his hand out towards her. The expression on her face changed, however, when Sasori closed his fist and dragged her just inches from his body. Sasori's placid face broke into a smile as she blushed at their closeness.

"You know I said this sand will protect you, however, it also protects _me_ as well."

The blush vanished.

"Well it seems I'll need to poison you again, I must admit as fun as it is chasing you around, _Sakura_, I am getting tired of you hurting yourself."

It was getting annoying chasing the girl around, but as he unloaded a needle from the back of his throat, it would be worth this. Sasori parted the iron sand from Sakura's lips. Her confused expression softening his gaze and just when she went to open her mouth, he kissed her. The needle sunk into her lower lip and normally the kiss wouldn't last very long, but his mouth had stayed upon hers till Sakura's blood started to flow into his mouth and down her chin. Pulling away from her Sasori drew the bloody needle back into his mouth.

Sasori wasn't able to take his eyes off of her as he licked away her blood. He couldn't taste it, but that was fine with him. Soon her eyes closed and her body sunk forward into his arms and he eased his hold on her just a bit. Then her face turned up to him with her eyes foggy from the poison and what he figured was the effect of their kiss.

"Oh, and by the way, nice outfit…"

The kunoichi's body went limp as he watched her become unconscious in his arms. As he picked her up Sasori felt happy, giddy almost. He had no idea a little kiss could make a person or puppet feel so different. His heart had thundered in his chest as his lips touched hers. Never had he kissed a girl and received such a response from his body, not even when he was still fully human.

It made him want to feel it again.

Back at his home Sasori took his beautiful doll into his old room. He gently put her down on the bed and sat staring at her. The scene reminded him so much of his dream. It was like any minute he would find out he wasn't really a puppet and could make love to her like any normal man.

But he wasn't normal and he reminded himself he didn't need to love anyone. He was just becoming too obsessed with his new ningyou. It wasn't like he could just take her anyway. Sasori was a man of his word and he did follow a set of rules. Of course, since the woman was asleep he could bend one of his rules. What was one more kiss?

Sasori's position on the bed changed. No longer was he just sitting by Sakura's side, but instead had straddled over top of her. Convinced that this was the best way to take hold of the situation and obtain a second kiss. Gulping down some of the poison that was in his mouth Sasori psyched himself up. He'd done this numerous of times, but all to girls he didn't care that much about. Plus, he was technically breaking one of his own rules: never take advantage of a woman (outside of combat of course).

Closing his eyes Sasori felt torn apart. On one hand he still felt human and wanted his human needs. On the other hand he wasn't human and became a puppet because of his human needs. Getting a headache Sasori opened his eyes, only to have his expression turn to horror. She was awake! How could she be awake? And with him caught on top of her…

The slight embarrassment Sasori felt slipped away as Sakura went to strike his face. But before her hand reached him the iron sand activated, blocking her. Angry at her sudden attack he watched as she brought her broken fist to her chest. Tears spilled down out of her eyes and Sasori's anger faded a little. All this fighting was doing them both no good.

Maybe he should change his tactics? Lifting her hand to his lips Sasori gently kissed her knuckles. He frowned for a moment at the sight of yet another wound he'd caused her.

"Let go!"

"Now, now. Don't you see my dear Sakura, I can be gentle."

He gripped her hand a little harder; after all she still needed to be taught a lesson for that little outburst.

"Then again, if you're going to insist on getting you self into trouble…"

Grabbing her by the shoulders Sasori pushed her down on his bed. With force his dream returned to him. Pushing her down into the ancient mattress he smiled at her, all of his rules thrown away. Just as he was about to bend down and kiss her she kicked at him. He felt the steel plate vibrate from the kick and his smile only widened.

"That isn't going to work again; you see I've _equipped_ myself better this time around."

Sasori for a moment had loss himself. His heart pounded and it seemed ever chakra string in his body tingled all at once. He felt himself begin to breath, taking in short gulps of air as he explored the new sensations. Sasori's hands roamed all over Sakura's chest feeling her, not if she were another project, but as if she were a woman he intended to make love to. He could barely hear as his breath stopped when he reached the slit of her dress.

"No…"

He didn't hear her, his thoughts only on his actions. Slowly he glided his thumb under the dresses material his other hand almost trembling as it held Sakura's arms down.

"Stop…"

There was a heat that seemed to penetrate the wood of his thumb. Something felt wet and Sasori tried to comprehend what that meant. Did she enjoy what he did to her? What would happen if he pressed his thumb in to her just a little further…

"STOP IT NOW! IS THIS HOW YOU WERE BROUGHT UP! WHAT WOULD YOUR PARENTS SAY?"

Stunned Sasori just looked at her.

"Parents?"

When they opened red rimmed eyes stared back at him and the realization of what he'd just done hit him. How could he have let himself go like that? Jerking his hands free of her Sasori practically jumped off of her. His thumb was still warm.

"_Whatever._"

Walking towards the door he beat his mind back into submission. This girl was going to be a part of his collection and here he was thinking she was his love doll. No he had to stop this; it did him no good if he kept breaking her. Sakura should be healing. Turning to look at her only made more self-loathing. Her hands had new bruises as she stared at him horrified. Sasori didn't like the look of how things were turning out.

"Get better soon, girl."

Locking the room from the outside this time, Sasori stormed over to his bathroom. Throwing aside a table he walked right up to the mirror, grabbing either side of it.

"This is what _you_ wanted. This is what _you _worked for. Why do _you_ want to jeopardize it?"

But the puppet in the mirror only copied his angry face. Pulling up a chair Sasori sat with his fist in his eye for the second time that day. He had to make a decision. He was a shinobi; he knew how to control himself. So why couldn't he control himself around this girl?

Looking up at the puppet body of Sasuke he only sighed. There was so much work to be done. Taking the puppet down Sasori knocked the foot in properly and dressed the doll in the clothing he'd made. All that was left to do was make the puppet battle ready and give it a red cloak. Sasori cleaned up the mess he'd caused in the bathroom and took his supplies and new puppet in through his middle door. Dropping off his supplies and stringing up Sasuke he looked around his room filled with all of the hitokugutsu he'd collected over the years.

"_What would your parents say? _Hmph. Who cares their dead anyway."

Why did she have to bring up such a touchy subject? He sighed. There was a lot of work to be done and he could easily manipulate any of these puppets. Maybe he should stay away from Sakura till she was ready to become a part of his collection. His heart stopped with the thought. Bringing his hand up to his chest Sasori bent over in pain.

That was the last straw. He couldn't do his work without thinking about her, he lost control when he was around her, and now his heart stopped at the thought of not being near her? What was happening to him?

"Shimatta…"

Looking around the room once more he froze, only to relax after a moment. Walking towards the puppet his eyes widened. Sasori remembered now why Sakura had appeared so familiar to him. As he unstrung the doll he held it in front of his face. A dark smile spread across his features. Sasori knew how he could get this girl too corporate.

"Like they say: all you need is your mother's love…"

...

_Gosh wasn't that just a great teaser and only 14 pages worth of work. I love cliffhangers and sorry for the wait! Updates are coming slow again. Anyway till the next chapter...bye!_


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